The Dark Knight Trilogy: 10 Moments That Make No Damn Sense
9. The Bits Where Rachel Turns Batman Into A Soap Opera
As a character, Rachel just doesnt make sense to me, and no it isn't just because Katie Holmes was awful, and then they necessarily replaced her a little bit too late, which in itself was a little jarring, even if Nolan dealt with the situation as best as could be expected.
It is the very foundation of the character that vexes me the most. She was created by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer specifically for these movies, and she was pretty much only used as a moralizer and an extremely blatant Bruce-change-your-views-and-life plot device. She's not a real character, and worse, what she represents turns the very notion of Batman away from what he ought to be.
Because of Rachel's influence over Bruce, her demise (and other tragic events relating to her up to that point) turn the trilogy into a story not of vengeance against murderous criminals, but of tragic love, in which one person dies, and the other must endure the horrible reality of life without them. It's a cable TV movie with a major budget and a big rubber suit.
If you look at the trilogy from this point of view, it becomes clear that Batman's is not a story of a man who wanted to make the world and his city a better place, instead its the tale of a man who did most of his good deeds to please a woman and prove that hes still that good sincere boy who was once scared of bats. It all feels like a marketing ploy to appeal to the cash-rich and spend-happy female audiences, who like their brooding single guys, whether they wear a cape or not.