2. Brother Eye
When The Dark Knight was released, we were treated to an endless number of editorials, articles and think pieces by internet and cultural commentators claiming that the film had clearly rejiggered the Batman mythos to act as a direct commentary on the War on Terror. What a lot of these commentators overlooked was the fact that the story elements added by the screenwriters had been part of the comics
for years. Take, for example, the much talked about plot point involving Batman using Gothams cell phones to track down the Joker. The moment was assumed by many political pundits to be a direct slam against/support for Bushs patriot act, but it was in fact directly inspired by the Brother Eye storyline in the Justice League comics, where it is revealed that
Batman is so paranoid that he keeps tabs on his friends as well as his enemies.
1. Runnin From The Po-lice
For Christopher Nolan, endings are perhaps the most important element of the entire filmmaking process. Very, very early in the process of developing The Dark Knight, before much had been figured out about the story, Nolan already had the basic elements: his final image for the film, according to the book The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy, depicted Batman "on foot", being chased by cops "from rooftop to rooftop." The image finally shifted to Batman riding away on the Batpod, but as co-writer Jonathan Nolan points out "it was the same essential image -- Batman being pursued by the people he's just helped to save. There was something very tragic about that."