While I thoroughly enjoyed your writeup, almost every one of your "quirks" was explained on screen.
Liam's character (renee ducard) *is* a crucial part of the organization in the comic books, and casting an actual martial arts action star as the head of a ninja organization was a decent bit of misdirection. As for why he's saved? Well he does have a lot in common with Bruce -- he's just far more extreme in his plans and far more willing to kill to do it. And for all we are clearly meant to disagree with his philosophy, Ducard's the one who gives direction to Bruce's quest to understand and fight criminality. They are friends and partners and Bruce is being groomed as a successor; of course Bruce would save him if he could.
Alfred was, in the books, a former member of the British Secret Service, who retired to serve the Waynes. Caine was a *fantastic* Alfred, especially for this movie -- you can see why Bruce loves him so much, because Alfred's his surrogate father.
Morgan Freeman plays Lucious Fox, who *also* comes from the comics, and serves pretty much the exact same role. In various stories, he helps Bruce pry the company away from the board and is complicit in Bruce's harvesting of Wayne Tech stuff for the Batcave. He's always been a friend of Bruce's parents, a Wayne company loyalist with old skool feelings about right and wrong.
How'd they get the Tumbler out of there? Plausible paperwork from the man in charge. They probably drove it into a shipping container, had it shipped somewhere neutral with appropriate paperwork ("Tumbler shipped to ___ for demo c/o ___"), and then had someone else pick it up from there. Remember, there's even a scene where Alfred describes how they'll order parts and stuff through dummy organizations. A few bribes here and there as necessary, a few "Go on home, I'll lock up" nights from Fox, who clearly works nights to begin with because he's a research division chief, and you're golden. Fox has every reason to help Bruce and every reason to hate Rutger Hauer, who has buried him in the basement to keep him quiet -- probably because Fox, as a trusted friend of the founder, would have been a vocal critic on the board.
Absolutely LOVED the Scarecrow -- fantastic choice, well written (start with unethical but charismatic and respected researcher with ties to crime, add overdose of crazy gas) and it sets up a whole horde of reasons for so many costumed loonies to be in Gotham, and for Bats to feel partly responsible for them.
Rachel's there to humanize him and ground him, and to connect him to the *good* cops, and to show that the law isn't entirely broken.
I hope in the next movie we see Rachel paired up with District Attourney Harvey Dent, and that we see Bruce and Harvey as friends for a movie or two before that goes sour. They did a brilliant job with that in TAS, as Harvey slowly crumbled under the pressure of being a DA in Gotham...
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Liam's character (renee ducard) *is* a crucial part of the organization in the comic books, and casting an actual martial arts action star as the head of a ninja organization was a decent bit of misdirection. As for why he's saved? Well he does have a lot in common with Bruce -- he's just far more extreme in his plans and far more willing to kill to do it. And for all we are clearly meant to disagree with his philosophy, Ducard's the one who gives direction to Bruce's quest to understand and fight criminality. They are friends and partners and Bruce is being groomed as a successor; of course Bruce would save him if he could.
Alfred was, in the books, a former member of the British Secret Service, who retired to serve the Waynes. Caine was a *fantastic* Alfred, especially for this movie -- you can see why Bruce loves him so much, because Alfred's his surrogate father.
Morgan Freeman plays Lucious Fox, who *also* comes from the comics, and serves pretty much the exact same role. In various stories, he helps Bruce pry the company away from the board and is complicit in Bruce's harvesting of Wayne Tech stuff for the Batcave. He's always been a friend of Bruce's parents, a Wayne company loyalist with old skool feelings about right and wrong.
How'd they get the Tumbler out of there? Plausible paperwork from the man in charge. They probably drove it into a shipping container, had it shipped somewhere neutral with appropriate paperwork ("Tumbler shipped to ___ for demo c/o ___"), and then had someone else pick it up from there. Remember, there's even a scene where Alfred describes how they'll order parts and stuff through dummy organizations. A few bribes here and there as necessary, a few "Go on home, I'll lock up" nights from Fox, who clearly works nights to begin with because he's a research division chief, and you're golden. Fox has every reason to help Bruce and every reason to hate Rutger Hauer, who has buried him in the basement to keep him quiet -- probably because Fox, as a trusted friend of the founder, would have been a vocal critic on the board.
Absolutely LOVED the Scarecrow -- fantastic choice, well written (start with unethical but charismatic and respected researcher with ties to crime, add overdose of crazy gas) and it sets up a whole horde of reasons for so many costumed loonies to be in Gotham, and for Bats to feel partly responsible for them.
Rachel's there to humanize him and ground him, and to connect him to the *good* cops, and to show that the law isn't entirely broken.
I hope in the next movie we see Rachel paired up with District Attourney Harvey Dent, and that we see Bruce and Harvey as friends for a movie or two before that goes sour. They did a brilliant job with that in TAS, as Harvey slowly crumbled under the pressure of being a DA in Gotham...