Film Theory: David Fincher's Se7en Is Set In Gotham Before Batman

2. Morgan Freeman's Detective Somerset Is The Key

The primary link between Se7en and The Dark Knight saga in particular is Morgan Freeman, who appears as Detective Somerset and Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) gadget-smith Lucius Fox in the films respectively.

Quite aptly, Somerset is seen conducting the sort of deep dive detective work throughout Se7en that you'd expect Batman to be doing.

Oddly, though, none of the Batman movies have done a whole lot to present the Caped Crusader as a genius detective, bar that comically contrived bullet reconstruction sequence in The Dark Knight.

But Somerset is decidedly more interesting as a human being than he is a cop: he's been spending his entire adult life dealing with the crime in the city, and even still, he desperately wants to mine some humanity from the pit of despair.

This is confirmed by his terrific closing narration, that for all of the world's ugliness, it's still worth fighting for. In that respect, he's a little like Bruce Wayne, no?

Is it a bit of a leap to suggest that Somerset retired from the police force and became Lucius Fox years later? Sure, but one character absolutely informs the other, and their personalities aren't a million miles away from each other either.

Hell, Se7en even features a scene where Somerset receives FBI information about what books people have been checking out of the library, and as we all remember, Lucius Fox proves himself deeply concerned with notions of privacy when Bruce uses his phone-snooping technology to help battle The Joker.

Somerset can dovetail neatly enough into Fox because the former has no family, while virtually nothing is ever said about Fox's private life.

But even if you find that link a little too contrived, Somerset's world-weary perspective sheds further light on just how much of a moral toilet the city is, and how closely it resembles the notoriously crime-riddled Gotham.

In fact, you can easily argue that Se7en did Gotham City better than any of the actual Batman movies have...