The Dark Knight Spoiler thread. Don't come in if you haven't seen the movie.

I like Pearce as an actor, especially in Memento. And seeing how Nolan likes to use a lot of the same people again, he'd definitely be on the short list IMO.

 

I think he'd work. Problem is, I dont think we'll have another Batman movie for a while until all the love for Ledger dies down.

 

Another question of ambiguity, and this movie has dozens. Does The Joker know that Bruce Wayne is Batman?

In the interrogation scene it seemed strongly suggested that The Joker had put it together because of how Batman had save Rachel. And this was fueling Batman's rage as he smacked the Joker all over the room. But of course this also played well as Batman's paranoia about being revealed. And happily they left it unanswered.

I loved how the movie constantly played with dual motives and ambiguity, which really made the movie feel much more real than any other comic book movie.

The Joker's conflicting yet equally convincing back-stories.

Did Bruce take the Moscow ballet because it was the best cover, or did he do it to ruin Harvey and Rachel's date? Or both?

Did Bruce interrupt their dinner date to screw with Rachel, or to find out more about Dent? Or both?

I liked how you didn't know Rachel's true loyalty until after she was dead and Alfred burned the letter. As she was telling Harvey she'd marry him, you didn't know if she was suddenly saying this just to make him feel better before he died.

And nothing to do with ambiguity, but I loved how for the first time in any of the Batman movies Alfred was no longer always the whiny "oh why do you do this to yourself nag" but instead just kept pushing Bruce to fulfill his role as Batman. It was a refreshing choice.

 

Yea, I liked the themes in this movie. For once, we get a superhero movie that makes you think instead of just being a fun ride.

and as for the Joker knowing Batman's real identity, yea, I think he did some research of his own. This is how he knew Dent would be at Wayne's penthouse.

 

alright, let me give my cluster **** of thoughts, as this was a pretty profound movie for me. i'll start with the Ledger. I've always rooted for him as an actor, as a good friend of my brother(and consequently myself) wrote "10 Things I hate About You". This was Ledgers first big role really, and as I said, I always pulled for him, as he did have a star quality, even in this teen comedy. and he killed this role. i mean, you had to love the Joker in this film, unlike Jack Nicholson or in the comics where you just wanted him thwarted. Every-Single-Time he was on screen, it was magic and exciting. i felt real bad when Ledger died for him and his family. after this movie, i feel bad for me, because the opportunity was there for a future appearance, whether it was a 5 minute cameo in Arkham or a big role in the future....but he is gone, and we're deprived. this was one of my favorite performances, from a pure enjoyment standpoint, ever.

my biggest issue was casting the holmley gillenhal as Rachel. i mean lets be honest with ourselves, looks matter, and she's got two uber successful dudes who look like Bale and Eckhardt in her pocket? not happennin. but then again, its better than casting the hollow katie holmes.

but i loved the movie. its not the greatest movie of all time, but it was awesome fun, like batman begins, and really good and solid. and after Gladiator or The Return of the King hitting Oscar paydirt...anything can happen come awards time. i'd love to see Ledger win a posthumous supporting oscar.

and great casting, with michael jai white, Zeus(tiny lister), eric roberts, and some others who i cant think of at the moment.

one thing id like to discuss, what was the deal with Joker having all those different stories about how he aquired his scars? he told michael Jai White one thing, told Dawes another...whats the deal, whats the truth? is there any?

any that was weird with the scarecrow's cameo. was it really worth the bother? i mean, even if he is in a future movie, who cares? he's a vigilante wanna-be now? but that was easy to brush off.

maybe there is something to the scarecrow and catwoman(with fox's cat reference) in the future. then again, maybe maybe not. if we're all busting out conspiracy theories, i'd have to say mine is along the lines of the big struggle with batman against gotham PD, his vigilante status, the media and the public. that would make the strongest story. mix in a well known villain like catwoman for some love interest, or legal ambiguity and you're set. im not gonna over think it. if it was going to be predictable, the writers wouldnt be doing their job.

 

It depends. They won't rush it. And Nolan won't come back until he is ready to, and has a great story. But if they already have an idea in their heads, I don't see any reason they couldn't have another one out in 3 years. 4 at most. But if Nolan drags his feet, the studio will move on. They don't want to wait 5 or more years to go back to the cash cow. Especially with all the Marvel movies that will be coming out. There is a line between stepping on the legacy of Ledger, and stepping on the momentum you get from a great film like this. You wait too long, people forget. You do it too soon, people will resent.

 

Another part of this movie I didnt agree with or like what they chose to do with the characters!

 

a random thought: part of Ledger's Joker, i believe, was influenced by Gary Oldman's role as Mason Verger in Hannibal. I saw some similarities in attitude, linguistics, and tongue movement.

 

Exactly, so probably another 3-4 years.

 

I think Ledger is in prime position to get a nod but I'm not sure Dark Knight will garnish a Best Picture nod unless it's a really weak field.

 

yeah, i agree.

 

I've liked Ledger since "10 Things I Hate About You" though not much since. Thought that was a very good teen movie, felt more like John Hughes than any teen movie made since the 80's.

Zeus! Yes.

I like Gyllenhal. Her voice, her eyes, I think she's kinda hot.

The back story on The Joker was: screw your fixation on back story. You ain't getting one. Clearly it was traumatic, and he is a pyscho so you'd never know the truth unless you were there too.

I thought the Scarecrow cameo was great, I'll have to see it again because that scene was slightly confusing, but I didn't get the impression that he was working with the Batman wanna-bes. I thought it was just a sign that Batman was getting better, and easily wiping up villains that had eluded him last time out. Setting the stage for an adversary that he couldn't keep up with.

Is there a Batman comic that makes Batman VS. GCPD interesting? I think it will certainly be a part, but it seems anti-climatic that he'd go up against the entire police force when the Commissioner is his ally.

 

What do you mean? I loved how they used Alfred, Rachel, and Fox this time out.

 

He is Bruce Wayne, he is Batman, let the dude read the letter and let him know what was said....why burn it.....stupid in my view.

 

Im not for certain of a specific comic story, but I know that Batman historically was hated by the Gotham police because he makes them almost irrelevant if he can fight crime more effectively, so its kind of a jealousy thing. No Batman means better opportunities for advancement/higher pay/recognition and also more opportunities for corruption, so if I lived in a fictional Gotham City and was a cop, Id too hate Batman.

 

It was too much for him to lose Rachel. Imagine what wouldve happened had he known she was going to reject him on top of that. Alfred thought it best he didnt know. You couldnt figure that out?

 

Alfred knows him best. And this entire movie was testing Bruce's resolve and commitment to following through. The man was almost out of hope. Rachel wanted him to know when the time was right, Alfred decided Bruce couldn't bear to lose that last sliver of hope, so perhaps the time would never be right. "Don't make me your last hope for a normal life." The one thing Alfred has always tried to maintain for Bruce was his humanity. I liked the choice he made not to risk letting Bruce lose it once and for all.

 

its been an on again off again theme. obviously itd need some fine tuning, but the theme of the dark knight as an outlaw vigilante has potential imo, as a strong theme in the next movie.

 

:tissue: :throwup: :auntflowparty:

Yeah, I figured out right at that moment that it became a chick flick instead of the comic book action movie Batman Begins was.

Do you hear yourself...."Too Much for him....Imagine if he would have known about rejection...Alfred thought"....dear god people snap out of it....this is BATMAN...not CRYING GAME!

 

i'd love to see a seperate film made from frank miller's The Dark Knight Returns, with the Mutants, epic slugfest with superman, and everything. that was a great series.

 

Still, they did applaud Harvey Dent when he said he was the Batman.

 

I dont know for sure though why they did, I dont know if its because they liked him or that they were glad Dent was going away. Remember, Dent put away alot of dirty cops. Maybe they wanted him gone, and if they thought he was really Batman, that wouldve been the icing on the cake.

 

I absolutely get that. It's a lot more interesting forcing him to run from the cops and the bad guys. Especially with the conflict of interest of all involved.

But that seems more like a useful device to use as a recurring theme, rather than the focus of the story. It does seem like a good escalation, especially if there is no Joker in the next story. Having the cops angrily hunting down Batman will make it easier for a lesser villain to become a convincing threat.

 

Agreed. The problem is Rachel is that she is a horrible character. A very useless damsel in distress. Any actress would love the exposure of being in TDK, but that character sucks.

In part, this movie is based off of the graphic novel "The Killing Joke." Joker paralyzes Gordan's daughter in an effort to prove to Batman that "One bad day" can turn anyone into a homicidal maniac (Gordan doesn't, Joker is proven wrong. Obviously not the case in TDK).

Anyway... One classic line deals with the Joker saying that he "sometimes remembers things one way, sometimes another. If I have to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" Homage to the fact there is no definitive backstory as there have been quite a few. Also, it serves to showcase that the Joker is a pathological liar and not a reliable narrator.

I think the obvious (not the best necessarily) direction is Batman vs. Gotham City with a new villain thrown in. With Dent, the White Knight dead, a new villain steps up to replace Dent. A so called hero to the people who is actually manipulating them. Batman has to stop him, as Gotham tries to stop Batman. Batman regains hero status.

 

Really? He's not a cyborg. Bruce Wayne became Batman out of the hope he could make a difference. To dismiss that and pretend that losing hope is material that only a chick flick can deal with is narrow-minded.

 

Maybe, but the general feeling I got was that they liked him.

 

And to believe that Batman couldnt come to grips that a love that might have been turned into a lost love, and Rachel had her last words to him burnt and destroyed...without his knowledge of her wishes....is key to keeping this Batman sane......ok.

 

I think you were hoping for this to be a testosterone driven movie. You have to pick up on the underlying themes in this movie, otherwise youre missing the point.

 

Nope, just wanted a continuation of the freshness that was Batman Begins.....

 

Yea. Remember, Batman/Bruce Wayne is human, and one of the major themes of Batman is that he has to keep a code, some kind of honor, and has to keep from pushing the line. Losing Rachel and then learning she was not going to be the love of his life as he wanted to was going to have an adverse effect on his persona. Its pretty obvious.

 

...and they made a smarter sequel.

 

He was going to murder, in cold blood, the man who killed his parents. The only thing that stopped him was someone got to the guy first.

He almost became two face. Judge, Jury, executioner. It's not a leap that he would lose what little hope he had left. There was no reason he needed to see that letter.

 

Really, even when played unconvincingly by Holmes I thought her character served a much more useful purpose than any of the other women in the Batman films. She wasn't some new love interest whom Batman would reveal everything to in 2 hours. She was at least someone who connected us to who Bruce was before, and to the real world. In both films she is challenging him to be a better person, a real person, which makes the sacrifices he makes to become Batman that much more powerful.

And unlike the 4 different love interests in the 1st four Batman films, her ultimate purpose was to service the tragedy of Dent's fall from grace. Other than the Catwoman, I wish they had killed the other women, what's the point of saving their lives if they are just a footnote the next time out?

 

First of all, Batman isn't sane. But at the point in the movie when Bruce tells Alfred that "she would've waited for me." He's even lying to himself, because he should already know better. Alfred made the decision, correct IMHO, that he couldn't handle the truth at this time. Just like Batman and Gordon decided that Gotham couldn't handle the truth about Dent.

Just like Michael Bay can't direct. Some people can't handle their action films including adult themes like, gasp! Hope.

 

Eh, she's no Lois Lane. She really regresses in this film too. In BB she's tough as a rock, willing to fight injustice at every turn. She's Harvey Dent... In TDK she is more of a lovesick puppy caught in a love triangle. However, she is useful in Harvey's fall from grace. I'll give you that.

I've always hated the dopey idiots Batman reveals his life too. Rachel was far better, sure. But she wasn't so great.

 

I didnt have a problem with Maggie, but the Rachel character does seem to be a bit clueless as a legal assistant. I was surprised she didnt pick up on the conspiracy legal angle Dent brought up to round up the mob.

 

She was being out shined by Harvey in the DA's office. Which served to glorify him rather than diminish her stature. And unlike the Rachel of the first movie who goes down to the basement of Arkham for no good reason only to become the damsel in distress, this Rachel punches the Joker, kisses both Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent convincingly enough that you aren't sure until you hear her letter who it is she wants. I didn't see her turn into something less than she was in BB, not by a longshot.

Yeah Batman doesn't have a Lois Lane. Which always makes these films awkward when they try to create a Lois Lane for Batman. I thought, if they had to force that dynamic into these movies, that they did an excellent job. And rather than diminishing Bruce's sacrifice by doing what the first movies did, she actually heightened it.

 

yeah, that was awesome

 

Batman even dated Lois Lane. See The Batman/Superman Movie.

 

the Watchmen looks awesome eh? great preview.