Why Batman Rarely Uses Batarangs In The Dark Knight Trilogy
The batarang is one of Batman’s most iconic gadgets, yet he uses them extremely rarely in Christopher Nolan’s celebrated Dark Knight Trilogy. The films make full use of Batman’s arsenal of non-lethal devices, from his grapple gun to his gliding cape, yet his batarangs are seldom seen, let alone used against criminals. The reason for this has to do with the tone and relative realism that Nolan intended for his iteration of Batman.
The batarang has been part of the Batman mythos for even longer than essential supporting characters like Robin and Alfred. Debuting in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics, the batarang was initially envisioned as a metal, bat-shaped boomerang that could non-lethally stun or incapacitate criminals and return to Batman. Over time, however, batarangs have been depicted as a combination of boomerangs and shurikens, being able to cut ropes and cause other forms of calculated environmental damage without inflicting lethal wounds on ordinary human criminals.
Related: Why Ben Affleck's Batman Doesn't Use His Cape Much In The DCEU
Batarangs are, unsurprisingly, featured in nearly every live-action adaptation of Batman. The 1966 Batman TV series and the Batman films by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher depicted standard batarangs similarly to their original Golden Age appearance, being blunt instruments that are used to non-lethally strike Batman’s enemies. In the DCEU’s films, Ben Affleck’s Batman uses comic-accurate modern batarangs that can non-lethally, albeit brutally, cut and puncture ordinary criminals. In Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, which focuses on relative realism, batarangs are no more than simple bat-shaped shurikens that Batman doesn’t directly use on his enemies.
Nolan’s version of Batman was
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