They Must Have All Been iPhones
Most movies require you to suspend at least SOME amount of disbelief, otherwise we could never enjoy ourselves watching a piece of fiction. However, the basis of the new Batman franchise, starting with “Batman Begins” is an attempt to ground the Batman lore into reality. REAL reality. Yes, a guy dressed as a bat who fights crime with lots of neat gadgets is beyond the realm of day-to-day reality, but “Batman Begins” presented it as believable as possible and did a good job at it.
In that light, “The Dark Knight” started off on the right foot in the opening scenes. I’ll put aside for a moment that Batman was shown bending the end of a machine gun with one hand… Anyway, near the end, we see that Bruce Wayne has somehow developed a device WITHOUT Lucious Fox’s help which somehow turned everyone’s cell phones in Chigaco (I mean Gotham city) into real-time sonar devices that also sent their real-time 3D imaging, in sync, to some 500-screen computer station that also sends the 3D signal to Batman’s head gear.
It helps to know how this was initially introduced into the storyline. Fox had used a similar cell phone device when visiting the office of the Chinese banker, and explained to Bruce that it was a cell phone modified to work as a sonar 3D mapping device. It was left to be presumed (and any reasonable person can withold disbelief) that it was a physically modified phone. That’s reasonably believable. However, to extend that later into Bruce (who by the way had to ask Fox to provide him a modified suit since he couldn’t modify it himself) went and built a huge complex 500-screen worksation that got fed a 3D signal from every cell phone in Chicago (I mean Gotham) in real-time.
Was this the week after Apple upgraded everyone’s iPhones enhanced sonar GPS? Did he also convert all cell towers of all wireless providers to support the extra sonar signals? Did he ask Santa Clause to sneak around and replace everyone’s cell phones without them knowing to send out sonar signals?
If someone can please show me the “3D sonar” button on my phone, I would greatly appreciate it.
Filed under: Story/Plot Problems Tags: batman, cell phone, iphone, sonar
I believe he did say something about having a huge telecommunication contract going on, which was the sonar equipment… with that kind of money I am sure it could be done.
and another thing…
I love how you are complaining that he could put the computer station together, but not make his own batsuit together…
I am sure you set up your computer, tv, etc… but when was the last time you made your shirts…
same concept.
yeah he said to lucius that they landed a “telecommunications contract” for R&D to work on…R&D is not lucius
There was something mentioned in the movie where someone comes and tells Lucius Fox that a whole communications project has been started up in R&D and i remember Wayne specifically stating that he’s playing this one close to the chest
Did you not catch the part when Fox asked Bruce about the government telecommunication contract (or something to that effect) and Bruce wouldn’t tell Fox what it was for? It was obvious that Bruce was working on something without Fox’s knowledge, but of course Bruce alone didn’t build it.
Sundance,
I don’t think the 3D cell phone monitoring system can really be called a “computer station.” It’s a little more than a PC running Windows XP. For that matter, making a shirt is not that difficult it’s just following directions — same as setting up a computer.
The idea that someone is capable of designing a computer system, but doesn’t have the acumen to design a protective suit (or at least provide requirements) is a little ludicrous.
As for the “huge telecommunication contract” — I work in contracting for the DoD. If Wayne Enterprises was awarded a contract, they would have to actually produce something, which is a long process involving numerous design reviews. For Bruce to hide that from Lucius is very unlikely. Also, the government would be hesitant to award WE future contracts after they default on this one. Never mind the drop in share price that would occur (WE is publicly traded now, remember) after losing a major contract. Or is that too much reality, for this supposedly “realistic” version of Batman?
Why do you keep pointing out that Gotham is Chicago? It had to film somewhere.
Lucius in not R&D, he’s CEO. Which mean’s he’s responsible for the entire operation. Never mind that it is a publicly traded company (remember the IPO from Batman Begins?) and their expenditures should be available to the shareholders, so “hidden projects” like that one would be a bit harder to do.
If Reese is able to use corporate records to figure out Bruce is Batman, Lucius should be able to do the same to see what Bruce is building in the basement.
You sir are an idiot. Do you have any idea how sonar works? They use telephones and get this…sonar works THROUGH SOUND WAVES! That and not to mention the Telecom contract Wayne Enterprises had with the government, I think there is enough realism in there to justify a limited suspension of belief to make this work.
Just because you are an idiot and refuse to actually pay attention to the movie you are watching doesn’t make it a plot hole.
Just because he said “government” project didn’t mean it was actually a government project. Bruce Wayne personally helped fund the R & D department on what he told them was government work, but really was just something he dreamed up.
As for him bending the rifle, we see some sort of device on his forearm, a hydraulic press/saw that he then uses to try and cut open the van, but loses in the process. Look for it next time.
“You sir are an idiot. Do you have any idea how sonar works? They use telephones and get this…sonar works THROUGH SOUND WAVES!”
LOL, OK. Pick up your phone and using only the sound coming back from the person’s (mono) phone on the other end, describe how you would reconstruct that into a 3D representation of the environment they are in. Without modifying their phone.
“As for him bending the rifle, we see some sort of device on his forearm, a hydraulic press/saw that he then uses to try and cut open the van, but loses in the process. Look for it next time.”
I saw it the first time, but not when he was bending the rifle, when he slammed his hand into the vehicle he jumped on the side of.
That’s all find & good – a hydrolic device – but there is something in physics called tension and leverage. If you are holding a rifle and someone comes over to bend the tip, the tension going to first give (like a see-saw) on the other side. The rifle would have to be in a mechanical vice grip in order to be bent that way without the tension issue.
“You sir are an idiot. Do you have any idea how sonar works? They use telephones and get this…sonar works THROUGH SOUND WAVES!”
Maybe this is why the Dark Knight is doing so well. It is radio signals you are looking for and not to mention all of that transmission is probably converted to digital and back forth. That bit in the Dark Knight was laughable but ok for blockbuster movie. I had a problem with that whole scene. So let me understand this. There are bad guys in this building or the swat team. Somehow this “sonar” system is sending a complete composite of the building g and all of the people in there back to Morgan, he determines who the bad guys are and then calls back Batman? And then batman is supposed to find the bad guys, save the good guys include the Swat people; all in real time. Come on? That is a bit of a stretch.
Lucius is the one who noticed the government contract. So unless Bruce forged all the related documents to fool the entire company, there must have been such a contract.
And once again, Batman is supposed to be in the real world and Wayne Enterprises is a public company. Falsifying contracts and funding is fraud.
He could have funded it himself, but he should have hired outside contractors. It’s a lack of research on the part of the screenwriters.
Hahaha this site is hilarious, I mean, I can totally understand someone not liking a movie, but to be SO motived by other people’s enjoyment of something that they need to create an anti-site is, dare I say, far worse than making a movie a bunch of people like but some people don’t. Nobody understands irony anymore. :
he didnt develop that shit on his own, fox made the phone then reassigned R&D to work on the phones- think back to when fox asks wayne if he really reassigned R&D
tdk sucks… your tension and leverage argument doesn’t work. If enough force gets applied to the axis than the only other force would be some sort of counter force on one end or the other. It’s not really like a see-saw since the see-saw only has a single axis (the point at which the board rests), if you are to bend something you are applying force to both sides on the axis (you’d have a point on top and below the board.
I can go on explaining how it works, but honestly, if you’re going so far as to try to calculate the rate of force on an object that bends, you’re going out of your way to find things wrong (which you’ll find in virtually every movie).
wow….who the f**k writes all this stuff. what makes you say that bruce is too dumb to make his own gadgets? if you even know part of his background, he is one of the most smartest heroes in the comic book world along with tony stark and peter parker (yeh, i know they are marvel). take my advice, actually try listening while at the movies, don’t just look at it.
and yeh…get a life..a$$ho’
There is a lot of stretching going on by this site and to be honest it seems tdksucks is so annoyed by the hype, are you a spiderman fan or something?, that he will say the movie sucks because the sonar wouldn’t work, making it unrealistic in an attempt at realism, but won’t complain about the batmobile or the batsuit or the batbike.
They made these movies in a realistic setting as in making the characters more middle based rather then far left good guy against far left bad guy. Batman is trouble by his vigilantism and the whole world is not all, “Batman is awesome!!!” so that in itself is far more realistic then a super hero movie where he fights the villain and ets the key to the city.
“The idea that someone is capable of designing a computer system, but doesn’t have the acumen to design a protective suit (or at least provide requirements) is a little ludicrous.”
He does provide requirements for Lucius after his suit is ripped by those dogs. It’s the paper he hands to Lucius after their meeting with Lao.
“As for the “huge telecommunication contract” — I work in contracting for the DoD. If Wayne Enterprises was awarded a contract, they would have to actually produce something, which is a long process involving numerous design reviews. For Bruce to hide that from Lucius is very unlikely. Also, the government would be hesitant to award WE future contracts after they default on this one. Never mind the drop in share price that would occur (WE is publicly traded now, remember) after losing a major contract. Or is that too much reality, for this supposedly “realistic” version of Batman?”
It isn’t publicly traded. Remember that last scene with Bruce in the final film where he tells the old runner of the company that he’s the owner. He bought the company back from under Mr. Earle’s nose. It’s not a matter of bad writing you’re just a dumbass for not paying attention.
So you want to suspend your disbelief for a movie plot to an extent and then bitch about a SUPERHERO movie in which the main character is KNOWN for having technologically advanced gadgets? Did you miss the part about the government being involved? This website is certainly very useless.
there is a scene in the batbase after he shows fox the plans for the bat helm, but before he goes to hong kong. In this scene you can clearly see on his work bench he’s working on a new helmet, looks like it’s based off a motorcycle helmet. So, i would say fox just gave him the parts, and maybe a design to work off of, batman actually built it… much like he did with the rest of his suit…
“LOL, OK. Pick up your phone and using only the sound coming back from the person’s (mono) phone on the other end, describe how you would reconstruct that into a 3D representation of the environment they are in. Without modifying their phone.”
computers buddy…ever hear of one?
Also as a side note, its a work of fiction. Suspension of Belief is necessary, do you really think that the idea of Batman as a whole is possible let alone one stupid gimmick used in the movie? C’mon get serious find something else to nit-pick over.
Come on guys its a movie…. A comic book movie even.
Meaning it’s not supposed to make sense and be 21st century realistic in every little part.
Like Two-Face not having an eye lid on his left eye, it would’ve dried out in no time… but who cares.
On whole the movie was awesome.
All of the points this guy is making on this website are easily explained, im wondering if he even saw the whole film or was his mommy dragging his whinning a*$ to the bathroom every 15 mins, that may explain this whole website.
the phone/sonar thing I can live with, but there were just WAY TOO many phone calls placed in the the movie in general
[...] anyway, so he’s got all this nifty sci-fi 30-million cell phone bat sonar 3D thing hooked up to his headgear, and is able to “see” every everything up until just getting to the [...]
Are you guys able to derive pleasure from anything in life? Or do you spend all of your time sitting around criticizing people who actually go and out and do something?
“…there were just WAY TOO many phone calls placed in the the movie in general”?
“The idea that someone is capable of designing a computer system, but doesn’t have the acumen to design a protective suit (or at least provide requirements) is a little ludicrous”?
What is wrong with you guys?
As everyone should know, computer technology has been advancing in leaps and bounds ever since it came about, however, lightweight bulletproof materials have not been. Its been kevlar and ceramic plates ever since its come about. Being able to design a computer system, but not a perfect bulletproof suit, makes perfect sense.
By the way, he didnt design the sonar by himself, he assigned the R&D department to it.
Some common criticisms of the critics:
1) “Don’t you guys enjoy anything?”
Yes. We do. Just not this. It sucked and we’re having fun talking about how it sucked. Deal with it.
2) “It’s just a comic book movie!”
Yes. Quite.
But:
A) It’s really weighty and serious and pretentious. It clearly wants to impress you on that level, so why not discuss it on that level?
B) Fan boys praise it as if it were really deep. Pointing out the ways in which it’s just a (rather silly) comic book movie is legitimate disagreement.
C) IMDB ranked it above serious, well-acted, thematically intelligent movies like The Godfather. Those of us who don’t like it are saying that it doesn’t deserve to be ranked that highly – so we have to point out the ways that it falls short. Which means taking it seriously, even if only long enough to show that it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
oh, and
D) It sucks as a comic book movie, too. The fight editing is terrible, among other things. Also, the production design is really boring.
3) “All these points have been well answered”
Nope.
Most of the explanations I’m seeing boil down to either
a) Handwaving (somehow computers magically do it / we just have to take the film makers’ word for it / something I just made up probably happened off-stage to explain everything).
b) “It’s only a comic book movie” (see above).
Neither really does it for me, personally…
Personally, I think it would have been really funny if the new Wayne cel phone had caused planes to fall out of the skies and hospital patients to die.. right before their batteries pooped out from shooting out so much signal.
“It’s just a movie!” you say.
To you, I ask if you’d have found it plausible if Wayne Enterprises had modified every Gotham citizen’s automobile to fly. How about if he’d modified every single microwave oven to generate Twinkies(tm) when set to 2:39?
Every movie has a line of plausibility. Even for you.
PinkPig, and come common critics of the defence of the movie seam to pick out the weak defenses put up by the admittedly numerous fans who dont argue very well, but ignore the actual well reasoned and explained defences. Sonar generating phones is possible, not presently possible, but theorhetically possible. Just like invisibility fields were theorhetically possible and are now on the verge of becoming reality, or how memory cloth actually exists and is used by both the RAF and US airforce, or how weaponised microwave emmiters were actually built and tested (they didnt work too well; but the theory exists!) and in a movie meant to be just a little bit beyond our reality (so its both fantastic and plausible) sonar-phone’s aren’t a disbelief breaker to anyone with an actual science background. Look it up.
“sonar-phone’s aren’t a disbelief breaker to anyone with an actual science background. Look it up.”
Earlofthercs said “sonar-phone’s aren’t a disbelief breaker to anyone…”
Perhaps not, but getting the entire 30 million population of Gotham city to adopt a new sonar phone certainly is.
that “contract” will be the beggining of the JLA movie
to thejoler
“but getting the entire 30 million population of Gotham city to adopt a new sonar phone certainly is.”
well, Lucius’ phone gave a sonar model of a whole skyscraper. That’s one phone for a massive building. So you probably wouldn’t need every single person to have one. just a fair few. Lets say about half.
Wayne is rich. Very rich. and he was able to buy back wayne enterprises in BB through various other companies and such. so heres a man with defense contract money (which im guessing means alot) and shares in other organisations. which means he would be capable of developing this kind of hardware.
Assuming that wayne enterprises branched out into telecommunications, they would be developing telecommunications products. Best way to do it would be to disguise the sonar device as some new fangled phone feature (im thinking improved speakers and receivers).
sell this new product to major phone developing companies. Nokia, etc. If they pay you an amount, you sell them this new product to be used in their phones. you get money, they don’t have to wait for the patent to expire. everybody’s happy. Next time someone buys a phone, hey presto! wayne enterprise speakers are in there. use this in all your new phones. even have a “trade in your old nokia, samsung, insert brand here phone for a new one!” deal going on. Offer to install wayne speaker/receivers for reduced price, limited time only.
I’m not familiar with the types of deals these people run with, but if this sort of product was developed by Wayne and sold off, hes got the potential to spread the sonar device. Companies would happily install this in as many of the models of phones they make as possible. Including older models. Why wouldn’t they want to show off new technology? You want to replace your phone under warranty? Hey, heres a new one. same model, but with the wayne speakers. wanna buy a new phone the same as the old one you lost? same model, new speakers. and so on.
And the fact that it isn’t their technology doesn’t matter either. Look at the car industry. Seriously, car companies basically steal the engines off other car companies and make no changes bar a label for use in their cars. its a standard industry practise. as long as there isn’t a patent, it can happen.
And as long as the population buy, lose and break their phones, the sonar device could be spread. To a reasonable portion of the population.
Ta-Da! It’s…PLAUSIBLE!
jeeze its a freakin movie just sit down and enjoy it. theres a reason it is called FICTION!!
you’re just stupid
its only a film
get over it
“its only a film get over it”
See, I agree, it only is a film. Some people like it, others don’t. Some people want to enjoy it, others want more realism. Its really freakin subjective, but just because you feel one way or another about the movie doesn’t mean the other party is stupid.
Just because its a film, doesn’t mean I will like it, hell plenty of films I hate. But for others, this movie was good. That’s how it is.
I think this article makes a good point, as sonar may work with “sound waves” but it takes more than random mono-sound emitting and recieving phones to construct a 3d image of anything. The sensory equipment is just not there.
So, does that make it a bad film? meh, I still enjoyed it, though the first one just held up better.