DarkMagic
Super Freak
How is it ambiguous?? He clearly states the cape is backpack...Oye!just going to stay out of it from here. No point in arguing this anymore. Think I filled my quota last night
Nolan (from the special features):
We had devised with Lindy Hemming a backpack shape that the cape could fold up into, using the memory fabric idea from the first film. Originally everytime he rode the bike, we were going to use that backpack-shape because we felt that the cape would immediately get caught in the rear tire and pull the rider off.
Costume Designer Lindy Hemming, page 16 of The Art of The Dark Knight (making of book):
"I wanted to make a kind of backpack, where the whole cape could withdraw into the backpack," she reveals. "I sort of researched the shape of a bat's wings and worked out that it could flip repeatedly at 100 miles per hour, and end up as a kind of backpack-shaped thing on Batman's back, Originally I think that was going to happen every time he got on the Bat-Pod, but in the end, Chris really wanted to have the flowing cape, so we opted for a shorter version of the cape for when Batman rides the Bat-Pod."
Pg 177 of The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy:
"To solve the problem, Lindy Hemming and her crew had gone to great lengths to develop a prototype backpack, into which the cape would fold, electronically."
Both Nolan and Hemming describe the cape as folded "into" or withdrawn "into" the backpack...and then in the same breath, describe it as becoming a "backpack-shaped" thing. Ambiguous.
Now, taking only the evidence we see within the films themselves (no input from behind the scenes special features or "making of books")...we clearly see two of the hard, different smoothness than the cape texture, separate-from-the-batsuit (no-current running through them) backpacks stored in his bunker in TDKR. We see the suit stored separately from the cape in both the Batcave's plexiglass armory and the bunker's armory. What we don't see? Where exactly does he store the cape? Is it always inside the backpack when he isn't wearing it? For those of us that believe it *is* the backpack, does he always store it in "backpack-mode"? Even within only the movies themselves, it's ambiguous.
I agree. Could you imagine a scene of Batman "transforming" his flowing cape into "backpack-mode"? I'd almost expect to hear the transformers sound when that happens...and it would be silly as hell. But I can see the pov of those that believe it *is* the cape. I think it's ambiguous enough that we can all believe it is what we want.
He'd want the hardest part to protect his cranium from blunt force impact, and some softness and flexibility around his jaw so he could squeeze it on and off, not to mention open his mouth for speaking, shouting, grunting in fights etc.
