17. The Vehicles
Theres something about how film-makers see Batman that makes them think he needs to be bulked up artificially to work on screen. This phenomenon led to Batman being made to look by Joel Schumacher like a dude going out in fancy dress as a Spartan from 300. Fake muscles are worse than no muscles. But while Nolan did admittedly improve somewhat on the predecessor in his representation of the Batsuit (which wasnt exactly difficult more on that later) this tendency to beef up familiar iconography is still present in his franchise, only this time its in the vehicles. As a result the Batmobile now known as The Tumbler, just because it is, f*ck you looks like a tank. I know theres some bullshit in circulation about how this ties in to our collective consciousness of the war on terror. Hold on a moment, I was under the impression that Batman was the war on terror, even before said war had begun. This to me is almost emblematic of whats wrong with Nolans Batman. He shouldnt need a tank. Hes Batman. He alone is the tank. And the Bat formerly known as the Batwing, but now its not, f*ck you is just as bad. Just as bulky and unattractive as the Tumbler, this eye-sore doesnt look for a second like it would get off the ground. The great thing about the Batwing is that it was about a fraction of an inch away from looking like a normal plane; it looked like itd work. And here I thought Nolans big angle was realism. There are a few times when Nolan has made drastic changes seemingly just because. I dont think for a moment that these vehicles (with the exception of maybe the Batpod that was pretty cool) were as awesome or as poetically related to Batman as they could have been and for that I think Nolan really dropped the bat.