“The Dark Knight Rises” Set Pics…What’s going on?

So it’s a pretty normal day here at the offices of Unleash The Fanboy, and by ‘normal day’, I mean that we’re getting a s**t ton more leaked photos from the set of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Even though we’re used to receiving all of these behind-the-scenes peeks at the film, today’s volley is a bit more interesting than the average fare of shoddy iPhone pics of Gotham City Cabs. Today, we get to see what I can only assume is the climax of the film…an all out battle between Gotham City Police and Bane’s League of Shadows flunkies. If you didn’t get a chance to see the footage earlier, we posted a full video of the scene here

Now that we’ve all had a chance to look it over, I’m left with one question…what the Hell is gong on?

From what I can tell, it looks like Matthew Modine’s character, Nixon, is leading GCPD into the fray. So where is Commissioner Gordon? In the original teaser, we saw Gordon wounded in a hospital bed, so is Nixon his replacement? There’d need to be a lot of back story to support this part of the film, so I can comfortably assert that this battle will be in the last act of the film.

This entire movie is supposedly inspired by the Batman: Knightfall story arc. In that seminal classic, Bruce Wayne is crippled by Bane, and his title falls to a necessary stand-in, Azrael, until the Caped Crusader reclaims his cowl. I know it all seems a bit convoluted, but I think the fundamental aspects of Knightfall will be represented on screen, except that both Comissioner Gordon and Batman will be ‘crippled’ in some respect, and yield to temporary replacements. On that note, I’m convinced that Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman will replace the Dark Knight as the hero of Gotham for the first part of the film.

And are those Tumblers? We already know that Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman will have one, but why are there three? Is Alfred rolling up his sleeves in this rumble?

What do you guys think? Sound off in the comments section below.