Rewatching Batman Begins

So this is probably my 4th time rewatching Batman Begins and this time I’ve noticed some extra stuff I’d like to share.

First thing was when Ra’s Al Ghul said: Tomorrow the world will watch in horror, as its greatest city destroys itself. That really confused me when he said ‘greatest‘. If this city was the greatest, why was there a need to destroy it. The words seem conflicting at the moment, but after looking up Gotham City on Wikipedia, I found out that Gotham City was actually modeled after New York City and things start to make sense. Although New York City is great, being the financial back bone of the country, containing tons of sky scrapers, and having a diverse culture, it’s also riddled with crime and corruption, and probably one of the worse in the country. I guess as a civilization reaches its peak, it’s downfall is inevitable. One remarkable similarity you’ll remember is the dirty subways which quite resembles the New York subways.

Some interesting information:

The name Gotham is an old nickname of New York, popularized by author Washington Irving.

In terms of how Gotham City’s atmosphere is usually depicted, it has been said by some that, metaphorically, Metropolis (home to Superman) is “New York during the day”, and Gotham is “New York at night”.

Then there was the ninja (bat) stars. Apparently there’s 2 kinds that Batman uses.

the regular:

and the foldable ones:

Also, did you notice what was inside the crate that Finch (Rachael’s Boss) was investigating? At first I thought it was just Falcone’s drugs, but I noticed something else during one of my recent rewatches:

Apparently, inside that crate you’ll noticed the Wayne Enterprise banner and apparently it’s the Microwave Emitter (which makes sense).g

One thing I never really got was how they really stopped the train from reaching the main hub. Let’s set aside the fact and take it on faith that somehow the microwave emitter is unable to boil human blood, while able to vaporize water in tubes 50ft away. If you remember as the train was moving above Gotham City, man-hole covers would pop up and steam would stream up behind the train as the train moves over it. I’m assuming there’s at least 50ft between the train above the ground and the water pipes below the surface. However, by the time the train rails were shot down by Gordon, there were only 2-3 blocks left before the train reached the end of it’s railway and into Wayne Tower. However the train continued to fly forward as it crashes down and into the undrground parking lot (bringing it even closer to the water hub underneath the ground), you’d think that Ra’s Al Ghul would’ve succeeded in blowing the hub. The microwave emitter didn’t blow till the train skidded along the underground parking lot for awhile. I just thought that was a bit weird…

I’ll end this post one with one of the cooler non-verbal scenes where Batman apparently uses 2 ninja bat stars to form a claw as he holds down Ra’s Al Ghul:

What didn’t make sense in this scene was after he told Ra’s Al Ghul he wasn’t going to kill him, he threw the ninja bat stars and broke a window for no apparent reason. He could’ve as easily dropped the stars to grab the bomb to snap the train in half, but I guess visually breaking that window would be more cool.