[SlREN WAlLlNG lN DlSTANCE]
TUCKER: They have no code.
They're secretive. Usually they're masked.
There's something about the assassin that is appealing...
...to people's innermost dark side.
SNYDER: They're capable of incredible feats...
...of acrobatics, of stealth, of violence.
CAPULLO: These are like ninjas on steroids, you know what l mean?
Because their life expectancy can be very, very long.
SNYDER: We really wanted to create an enemy for him...
...that felt like a mirror reflection of him, but multiple ones.
COUSlNEAU: So the Talon is sent out to eliminate the political rival.
In this case, the ultimate prey is Batman himself.
GRANDMASTER: We are, and always have been...
...the sons and daughters of Gotham's wealthiest.
We know far better than the rabble what's best for our city.
SNYDER: The first thing that we came up with was this notion of a Talon.
The assassin that would work for the Court of Owls...
...and there would be an assassin for the 1 880s, the 1 890s...
...the-- You know, the 1 900s.
[THUNDER CLAPS]
There would almost be sort of a villain for every decade, every generation.
And it would be indicative of that generation's sort of fears and style.
So you'd have a 1 950's Talon, and that Talon's style and the way he killed...
...his weapons, his suit, everything would be about that era.
COUSlNEAU: The Court of Owls has elaborated this mythology of the Talons.
Just very visceral image of the claw of the owl...
...the claw of an animal that does what?
Seizes its prey.
Lifts its prey. Carries it away.
It's playing off on this idea of the paid executioner.
The one who will do the dirty work for the intellectuals.
SNYDER: They were meant to be almost evil Batmen...
...in the way that they're capable of incredible feats...
...of acrobatics, of stealth, of violence.
But they're all hands of the Court.
We wanted it to feel as though Batman was going up...
...against dozens of Batmen from different eras...
...that all were trained as hard as he had trained himself...
...and all of whom had the singular purpose...
...of working for this organization that wants him dead.
CAPULLO: Bruce had a fight with one of these Talons.
Bare bones. He didn't have any of his Batman gizmos on.
And he nearly got killed. I mean, these are dangerous--
As skilled as Batman, with longevity.
GRANDMASTER: Some of these warriors are over a hundred years old.
TUCKER: The Lazarus Pits are what revives the Talons.
They're a finite army that's constantly being rejuvenated.
It makes them scary because they're gonna keep coming back until they get it right.
The way l had the headgear for the Talons was--
I don't know if you've ever seen it and you should look it up.
The skull of an owl is pretty creepy looking...
...because it has very wide eye sockets.
And so l go, "It'd be cool to have, like, a bone face plate over it."
But Scott was leaning more toward techy-looking stuff.
And so l tried to mimic that with the mechanical apertures of the eyes...
...and what I did with the beak.
By not seeing the eyes and just having these shutters...
...which express no emotion, you know, was trying to get all that.
And the other stipulation was, you know, no guns.
SNYDER: The Talons use knives because, again, they're a reflection of Batman.
[GUNSHOTS]
The gun has been established as the lazy weapon for Batman...
...for Bruce's own psychology.
He feels as though he'll never pick up a gun.
A gun was used to kill his parents.
For the same reason he doesn't use them...
...I wanted the Talons to be characters that did not use them...
...so we could show how skilled they were in every form of hand-to-hand combat.
Every sort of deadly, horrifying way of killing somebody...
...they're skilled to the teeth in.
COUSlNEAU: The knife is a visual echo of the talon...
...or the teeth of the owl.
Something mechanical wouldn't have the same resonance...
...as the almost natural-like image of the knife...
...which cuts, penetrates, pierces, slays, draws blood...
...without any noise, without drawing any attention to it.
Comes and goes.
That presages the Talon assassin.
Moves in and moves out, just like the owl in the natural world.
[THUNDER CLAPPlNG AND RUMBLING]
SNYDER: l think part of the fascination with assassins, l guess...
...partly is they're so terrifying.
They almost feel like a reflection of death itself.
The very word "assassin" strikes terror in the heart.
It's a very elaborate mythology that goes back to Iran and Syria...
...in the 1 0th, 1 1th and 12th centuries.
A group of bandits had been trained from birth...
...to eliminate political rivals.
And this strikes terror in the heart that there could be people...
...hiding in the darkness...
...stealthily planning our very doom.
It's a 900-year-old mythology...
...that in some ways is parallel with our terror of the owl.
Both symbolize death lurking in the darkness...
...pouncing on us on a whim.
SNYDER: There's no reasoning with them.
And it's almost like our way of understanding...
...I think, our own mortality.
You know, an assassin coming for you...
...if it's a pure assassin like the way the Talons are...
...means your time is up, and there's nothing you can do to get out of it.
And there's something deeply frightening about that.
COUSlNEAU: But it's also an odd or eerie echo...
...of Batman's own program.
He works in the dark...
...works in silence, works without friends...
...works without family.
And yet, he's trying to do this in a way that is good for the race.
So on one hand, we're getting almost a kind of Greek tragedy...
...seeing both sides of a similar compulsion.
LlEUTENANT: We've trained you since you were a child...
...lifted you out of the gutter.
TUCKER: The Talons, throughout history, have been people who the Court has recruited.
They seek out people who've usually had some horrible tragedy.
They actually find them at the moment they're most vulnerable.
SNYDER: They'll raise them to be their weapons.
And weirdly enough, I think the people in the Court...
...don't see it as that bad.
They see it as sort of, you know, we're giving these kids a chance...
...to be a part of this huge machinery...
...that sort of controls the fate of the city.
GRANDMASTER: Your confidence touches me, Talon.
How is it going with the boy?
TUCKER: Dick Grayson, who's Nightwing, they almost approached him to be a Talon...
...after his parents were murdered.
There's a question of: Did they cause the event?
Creating their own Talons...
...by causing the Talon to lose someone who's close to them.
When we're describing the training of the assassin--
The training of the lost boys of the Sudan.
The training of the young soldiers that comprised the Khmer Rouge.
--we're talking about a way to excise the soul in a human being.
That's the only way an assassin is possible.
If you have any morals or ethics, you can't pull the knife out.
You can't slay indiscriminately.
GRANDMASTER: A great destiny awaits you.
And I know you will willingly embrace it.
Every emotional, spiritual and fraternal aspect...
...is drummed out of the trained killer.
What you end up with is a robot.
Someone without emotion...
...someone who is easily programmed.
GRANDMASTER: Now, kill him!
TALON: Yes, Grandmaster.
Men like this don't deserve to live.
COUSlNEAU: Another belief in folklore:
That the people, the bloodline...
...is made stronger through sacrifice.
So you think of the Mayan sacrifices.
You think of the sacrifices...
...and the mythology of "the king must die" in The Golden Bough.
The world is weakening, and every time there's a hint of that--
It could be war, it could be famine...
...it could be drought or disease.
--the belief that's deep in human nature...
...is we need a sacrifice...
...in order to keep the bloodline pure, to keep it strong.
SNYDER: The idea that a Talon has to go into the labyrinth...
...and then fight a younger Talon, to them, is amusement.
It's part of a natural system of selection...
...where this Talon goes down to sort of birth the next Talon.
COUSlNEAU: The "king must die" motif that T. S. Eliot refers to...
...in perhaps the most famous poem of the 20th century, "The Waste Land"...
...there is an association with the king and the health of the land.
If the king is healthy, the land is healthy. The land is fertile.
But if the king is lying...
...the land itself begins to die.
And then the king himself must go...
...in order for the land to be replenished.
It's a perverse notion...
...but this sense of sacrifice has its mythic function.
And that is-- That's what makes things sacred.
SNYDER: lt's allowing yourself to be part of something that says:
"l am just-- I am a tiny thing.
But l am part of something that will forever control this city."
And we wanted this sort of system...
...by which the Talons are chosen to be indicative of that...
...and as violent as they are, in that regard.
COUSlNEAU: One of the major heroes throughout human history...
...has been the war hero.
MAN 1 [OVER RADIO]: You are now cleared to engage the moving vehicle.
Killing is allowable because of the moral stakes involved in war.
This is what we've told ourselves.
MAN 2: You are cleared to level the building.
COUSlNEAU: But a new form of hero has been emerging in the 20th century...
...and that's the superhero of fantasy...
...who seems to be embodying a nuance...
...in that whole mythology of killing for a higher purpose.
[GROANlNG]
TALON: Don't doubt your instincts.
COUSlNEAU: For me, the main dilemma with the Batman saga...
...is his knowledge as an anti-hero with a spiritual life...
...and a moral conscience...
...that he must abandon vengeance...
...in the form of another kind ofjustice.
One kind ofjustice that he may even have to elaborate...
...in a world that may not want it yet.
TUCKER: I think the Talons and the Court of Owls are here to stay.
They're just as strong a villain...
...as the Joker or Ra's al Ghul.
They've taken a top spot on his list of villains.
[OWL SCREECHES]
I look forward to seeing more stories...
...with the Talons and the Court of Owls...
...and even using them in some of our future movies.
GRANDMASTER: Now, kill him!
[MEN GRUNTING]
We have a vision of Gotham's future, Mr. Wayne.
And so we understand. Do you?