By Tyler Merrels
WARNING: massive spoilers for both movies. Honestly, if you haven’t seen either by this point, you’re probably on the wrong website.
Batman and James Bond. The closest thing America has to royalty. Except…James Bond is…shut up. Most famous characters in popular culture are bound to share similarities-the whole reason they get so popular is by striking similar chords with the general population: both are rich, both are orphans, both can have any woman they want, both are trained in every form of fighting known to man.
However, the similarities between the two go much deeper than that. Here are 6 reasons why the new James Bond movie, Skyfall, is in fact a remake of the recently released Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.
Last chance to avoid spoilers.
1) Both protagonists let those close to them believe they’re dead
Bond takes a bullet and falls into the opening credits while Batman appears to take a nuke in the end of his movie, with neither survival making much sense or being explained. Both are presumed dead by (the closest things they have to) loved ones. Batman does this so he can retire the only way possible. Bond does this to use up his annual leave before it expires, ultimately returning since it would have been a very different movie otherwise. Both retreat to another country with a woman in tow.
2) The main villains were trained by the same secret organization as the protagonists
In Rises, main villain Bane is the teacher’s pet of the League of Shadows, the same almost-ninja cult that trained Batman in Batman Begins. In Skyfall, Silvas is a former MI6 agent taking revenge on his former boss. In both cases the heroes are meeting the better/stronger/Frencher version of themselves.
3) The villains have a traumatic mouth injury
Bane was the victim of a brutal prison beating that left his mouth disfigured and required his Dolby Surround Sound mask to hide/give out painkillers. Silvas bit down on a defective cyanide capsule that transformed him into a character from Breaking Bad and left him in need of dentures. Both were protecting someone close to them in the process (Bane was protecting Talia, Silvas was protecting M).
4) Both heroes are worn out
Both movies go to great lengths to show that their heroes are not up to fighting condition anymore: Batman is explicitly told so by Dr. Lt. Dangle while Bond is shown to have failed all of his tests to re-enter the field. Both are also troubled by old scars throughout their movies: Batman has his leg injury that is fixed by the power of MacGuffin and Bond has two gunshot injuries from the beginning of the movie, although he can never make up his mind which hurts him worse.
5) Both villains use “hacking” to distract from their real plan
In a scenario out of Freud’s dream journal, all Silvas really wants is revenge on surrogate mother M. However, he goes about this by getting her attention through hacking MI6, stealing hard drives, and, most evil of all, posting to Youtube. Bane wants to finish what the League of Shadows started by watching Gotham burn, but first he hijacks “Totally Not Wall Street” and bankrupts Wayne Enterprises. Both show that Hollywood still thinks “computers=magic”.
6) A fan favorite character is revealed in the last minute
In Rises, this character is JGL’s Robin. In Skyfall, this is a decidedly much sexier Moneypenny than was ever seen in the old movies. Both characters feature heavily in the entire movie but it is only when their full name is said that the audience discovers who they are and proceeds to blog about their disgust at the tactic/casting/decision.
So there you have it. You wasted your money seeing the same movie twice.
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