Starts off with logo, then Gordon giving eulogy. "I believed in Harvey Dent" - simple twist on the campaign slogan and yet that one extra "d" really makes it heartfelt.

Then suddenly we have a bunch of unknown people in a jeep driving to a runway in some rural area. Where are they? I heard that this scene was filmed in Scotland, but where are they supposed to be in the film? Who are they? From what I remember, at first it looks like local mercenaries getting a bounty for delivering some wanted men (faces covered by black bags) to some CIA dudes. (I read somewhere that the people in the plane are CIA, not sure if this is true; some of them wear uniforms with American flags, so they are American operatives of some sort.) But what is really happening?

This is what I think: the mercenaries were actually Bane's henchmen. They used the mercenary cover to get Bane on the plane. Anyway, the CIA guy says something to the effect of "first one to give me information on Bane gets to stay on plane, the other two get thrown out". He goes to the first one, threatens him. The guy doesn't budge, so gets thrown out of the plane. When CIA guy goes to second prisoner, prisoner starts talking. Turns out this is Bane. And I have no idea what Bane is saying. Meanwhile, Bane's plane descends on CIA plane and his henchmen conduct their elaborate "heist", I suppose. American operatives are all gunned down, the plane is torn to shreds and "towed", Bane says some more stuff that I couldn't decipher. The henchmen do some sort of blood transfer and then leave some guy behind on the plane. Then we see Bane and some passenger from the plane being lifted into Bane's plane. I would assume that the rest of Bane's henchmen (the guys in black suits) had already been lifted back into Bane's plane. But it seems like the movie emphasised the fact that one of Bane's men was left behind for a reason.

Can someone fill me in here? I honestly have no idea what happened. Maybe it's just one of those "wait and see the movie" type of deals, but surely the scene alone should explain itself, sort of like the TDK prologue. Also, what is Bane's motivation? What does this have to do with Gotham? Ra's al Ghul wanted to destroy Gotham for what he believed to be the greater good. The Joker wanted Gotham to descend into anarchy. Both of them had plans for Gotham that were directly related to their beliefs. What's Bane's plan? And is he really the main villain? I know nothing about the comics or Bane's history, but from what I'd heard, I just figured Bane fit in the "stupid but strong henchman" archetype and would only be a minor villain to Ra's al Ghul, who I assumed would return. But I guess that's not it?