Dark Knight movie/plot discussion

[MaxDepth]

This picture

Was at the same time, one of the most elegant and stark portrayal of a triumphant villian in any movie.

I have been telling people that I believe the movie to be less of an action/superhero movie and more of a gritty crime drama.

I would rate this movie as equal or better than The French Connection.

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: MaxDepth
This picture

Was at the same time, one of the most elegant and stark portrayal of a triumphant villian in any movie.

This movie and its predecessor have lots of wonderful scenes and images. My biggest complaint about the movies is that everything flashes past our eyes too quickly. It would be nice if the camera would linger for just a few seconds more.

 

[fallenangel99]

Originally posted by: jiffer

Originally posted by: MaxDepth
This picture

Was at the same time, one of the most elegant and stark portrayal of a triumphant villian in any movie.

This movie and its predecessor have lots of wonderful scenes and images. My biggest complaint about the movies is that everything flashes past our eyes too quickly. It would be nice if the camera would linger for just a few seconds more.

I agree. I hope there will be an unrated Dir. Cut!!

 

[Desturel]

Originally posted by: invidia
Why is Gordon's wife named Barbara? Isn't that suppose to be the name of his daughter/Batgirl? I noticed he did have a daughter too.

Gordon has two wives. Barbara and Sarah. Barbara was his original wife.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: crisscross
Heath Ledger was great.. though a lil more humour from him would have been nice.

how 'bout more magic tricks?

"TA-DA! It's Majik!"

One of the best (if not the best) character intro scenes in a movie (I don't consider the bank robbery a true intro)

 

[TimstonGalvitron]

Hi Guys, longtime lurker first time poster!

SO, saw TDK in IMAX on Monday...AMAZING. SURPASSED everything I could have wanted. Here are some things I would love to hear your opinion on.

1. What happened to the Joker and the Crew after they burst into Bruce's fund raising party for Dent? Did they just leave peacefully? Come on! That was pure nonsense just cutting to the next scene. Is this explained outside of the IMAX viewing? Also, why did Bruce have to Choke Hold Dent to get him out of harms way? That seemed unnecessary but I can understand how it lends a tone of seriousness to the whole scene.
2. WTF was with Rachel's note? So Bruce really thought that she would wait around for him?! No Way, not when there are sailboats filled with Russian Ballerinas to TAP! Rachel and her turtle-faced, make-up caked, pudding pie face should belong face deep on Dent's balls. Rachel was never the level of girl Bruce/Batman deserves so that was great when she blew up. (Sorry to sound so cold, but she made me cringe every time she was onscreen, ESPECIALLY when "Interrogating" criminals in the police station. That stupid chick would have been Raped and Ki34ed so fast by those thugs and her *put-on smug attitude with them was hard to watch.
3. Two face did not really seem that crazy, great make-up, but did he really seem that good before? How was he a "White Knight? for locking up criminals? I get it, but it still seemed very rushed and poorly explained why Batman chose to trust him.
4. The Joker was fucking incredible. LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM. Especially the way when the three black thugs were on their knees in the pool hall and he seemed to forget where he was completely and said "why so serious?" Not in a mocking way, but in a completely innocent way a child would ask a dying person why they are upset. That line totally made me believe he was truly crazy and not just a sadist.
5. Batman's voice...come on. (Already discussed so whatever...)
6. Joker burning the money didn't seem right.... He still needs money to buy stuff (even though he explained gun powder is cheap.... etc.) he could upgrade to nukes or biological weapons.... I don't recall Joker ever destroying money from heists in the comics...but I can let it slide, it was a cool scene.



THOUGHTS? Especially on #1 and #2
-T

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: Sheik Yerbouti

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: crisscross
Heath Ledger was great.. though a lil more humour from him would have been nice.

how 'bout more magic tricks?

"TA-DA! It's Majik!"

One of the best (if not the best) character intro scenes in a movie (I don't consider the bank robbery a true intro)

I don't know. Seeing his henchmen kill each other one by one and then watching him kill the last one himself was a pretty good introduction to his character, too. But the "magic trick" is going to be one of the best-remembered scenes from the whole movie.

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: TimstonGalvitron
1. What happened to the Joker and the Crew after they burst into Bruce's fund raising party for Dent? Did they just leave peacefully? Come on! That was pure nonsense just cutting to the next scene. Is this explained outside of the IMAX viewing? Also, why did Bruce have to Choke Hold Dent to get him out of harms way? That seemed unnecessary but I can understand how it lends a tone of seriousness to the whole scene.

I wondered the same thing. I suspect that something went wrong when the film was edited (the director does not have complete control over that when a big studio owns the movie). But I was willing to let it slide.

Originally posted by: TimstonGalvitron
2. WTF was with Rachel's note? So Bruce really thought that she would wait around for him?! No Way...

Rachel knew that Bruce had taken her previous words to heart when she had told him that "maybe someday" if the man she loved "came back", she would still be in love with him. I'll be repeating this when I respond to your next question, but did you notice that throughout the whole movie, it was clear that Bruce Wayne wanted to hang up his cape and let someone else take over for him so he could retire and be with Rachel? When she decided to marry Harvey, she wanted to let him know that she would not be available if he retired and came looking for her. She wasn't breaking her word because she never actually made any promises to Bruce. She made it clear that she couldn't live with a man who wore a "mask" (she said that "Bruce" was not his real face; his real face "is the one the criminals now fear"), and she was merely saying that maybe the man she loved would "come back" someday. But she didn't really promise anything.

Anyway, the note she gave to Alfred also served another purpose in the movie: Alfred destroyed it after she died because he wanted to let Bruce go on believing that Rachel never stopped loved him. It proves how much Alfred cares about Bruce, and how well Alfred understands Bruce. It was very, very touching.

Originally posted by: TimstonGalvitron
3. Two face did not really seem that crazy, great make-up, but did he really seem that good before? How was he a "White Knight? for locking up criminals? I get it, but it still seemed very rushed and poorly explained why Batman chose to trust him.

As I said above, Bruce was anxious to let Batman retire so that he could be with Rachel. The way he mooned over her was kind of subtle, but the fact that he was so anxious to find someone to "take his place" (even against his better judgment) just goes to show how much he wanted to be with Rachel. (The Joker noticed how dynamically Batman "threw himself after her" when she fell out the window, so the Joker could tell that Batman loved her.) Later on, Batman believed more strongly than ever that Gotham as a whole needed for Harvey to be their hero, even when it was painfully obvious that Harvey was NOT a "white knight" at all. I think that says more about Batman than it does about Harvey.

Originally posted by: TimstonGalvitron
4. The Joker was fucking incredible. LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM. Especially the way when the three black thugs were on their knees in the pool hall and he seemed to forget where he was completely and said "why so serious?" Not in a mocking way, but in a completely innocent way a child would ask a dying person why they are upset. That line totally made me believe he was truly crazy and not just a sadist.

The Joker claimed that his father said "Why so serious" (along with "Let's put a smile on that face") when his father allegedly, uh, "widened" the Joker's mouth. The Joker was repeating the same line to the black guys before he did something terrible to them in order to echo the alleged cruelty of his father. It was partly a way for the Joker to show that what his father supposedly did to him didn't bother him at all, and in a similar fashion, he didn't feel bad at all about inflicting pain on other people. You can't get much colder than that. (I say "alleged" and "supposedly" because the Joker probably made that story up--we don't really know how the Joker got his scars.)

By the way, after the Joker made those guys "audition" to be one of his new henchmen, did the movie ever show which one of them survived the death match? In other words, did one of them show up as one of his new henchmen? I might have missed it.

I wonder if that's the scene that's going to be shown at the Oscars when Heath Ledger is nominated (posthumously) for Best Actor. (It's PG-13, so they can do that, right?)

Originally posted by: TimstonGalvitron
6. Joker burning the money didn't seem right.... He still needs money to buy stuff (even though he explained gun powder is cheap.... etc.) he could upgrade to nukes or biological weapons.... I don't recall Joker ever destroying money from heists in the comics...but I can let it slide, it was a cool scene.

Burning the money was a symbolic act that was directly related to the story that Alfred told about the guy who stole the jewels and threw them away. The Joker wasn't motivated by things that normal people can understand, such as money. (Notice how much it bothers you to think that all that money went to waste?) The Joker is one of those people who simply want to watch the world burn. That kind of person is terrifying.

Throughout the movie, there was supposed to be a contrast between the Joker and "ordinary" bad guys like the gangsters. The gangsters committed crimes and hurt people when they wanted things like money (that is, things we could understand). But even the gangsters were repulsed by the Joker's viciousness. The gangsters were still human, and they could have true friends and love other people in spite of their criminal nature. They were appalled by pure madness. In contrast, the Joker is capable of killing even someone he loves (that is, if he ever actually loved anyone). He has no compunction. He thrives on chaos, and the only thing he cares about is having "fun". He won't kill Batman, because as he says, Batman is too much fun to kill. No ordinary criminal would ever say something like that.

By the way, I assume that the Chinese accountant was on top of the money when the Joker set it on fire. In other words, the Joker burned him alive (but the movie didn't show it). That's just plain...chilling. In a fiery way.

 

[ecopure]

I just watched this again and about batmans voice...... Why would he talk to Lucius with a stupid growly voice (since he knows he's Bruce) when he showed him the cellphone/supertv thing????

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: ecopure
I just watched this again and about batmans voice...... Why would he talk to Lucius with a stupid growly voice (since he knows he's Bruce) when he showed him the cellphone/supertv thing????

Maybe because would never use his real voice when he's wearing the Bat suit? But I guess that begs the question. Why won't he use his real voice when he's wearing the Bat suit? Is that an easier question to answer? Surely someone who is familiar with the mountain of comics might have some idea.

 

[TimstonGalvitron]

jiffer,

Excellent responses! I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. I think I was aware of most of those reasons explaining the various things I brought up but forgot them in the days after, Alfred's burning of the note WAS touching, as the burning of the money hill. It does make more sense that batman was desperate to give up his cape and cowl which still seems out of place and not like the character is presented in the comics, it would seem he has only been the batman for a couple years or so based on the timeline left back in Batman begins, but sometimes I misread that kind of thing, maybe you can clarify how long he has been batman at the time of the Dark Knight.

#4 was not so much a question as saying how I interpreted *how he said the line "Why so Serious" that one specific time, as if to completely forget he was about murder someone and was genuinely concerned with why the man with a gun to his head looked so serious....I was blown away by the delivery of that one line, and the other times he said it were very powerful as well. I don't think they showed which guy won, probably none of them did and the clowns wasted them all.

I did forget the Alfred story about the jewel thief, thanks for reminding me. Can't wait to see it again to fill in all the blanks!

Cheers!

 

[TimstonGalvitron]

Also....Did anybody catch the Gas Grenade in the bank managers mouth? Was that supposed to be "Joker Venom" (I'm reading wiki on Joker and Joker Venom is a gas or poison that turns it's victims into laughing uncontrollably and dying from it, or it super-powers them into puppets for the joker) Would've been cool to see that... Maybe it was just to show the unexpected, like you expect the grenade to explode and when it doesn't it's all the weirder.... Thoughts?

 

[jiffer]

Thanks for the compliment. I, too, need to see the movie again. There are so many things to connect and so many things to think about.

By the way, I just realized that Batman and Alfred both did something similar. Alfred burned the letter so that Bruce could continue believing something that wasn't true. Similarly, Batman took the blame for Two-Face's crimes so that the people Gotham could continue believing something that wasn't true (that is, the myth that Harvey Dent was a "white knight"). They both believe it's alright to deceive people for their own good. In real life, I have a problem with people who think they know what's best for me and people who deceive me, but in a movie like this, that sort of parallelism lends a nice touch.

 

[Skunkwourk]

Originally posted by: jiffer

Originally posted by: ecopure
I just watched this again and about batmans voice...... Why would he talk to Lucius with a stupid growly voice (since he knows he's Bruce) when he showed him the cellphone/supertv thing????

Maybe because would never use his real voice when he's wearing the Bat suit? But I guess that begs the question. Why won't he use his real voice when he's wearing the Bat suit? Is that an easier question to answer? Surely someone who is familiar with the mountain of comics might have some idea.

To maintain the image/symbol of Batman. If you read some of the novels he has other rules, although Im not sure if they've been broken in the movies. One was that Batman only appears at night and never in the day.

 

[dbk]

Does Bale speak with even deeper/hoarser voice in this one compared to the 1st one? I couldn't take him seriously with that Batman voice. 7/10

 

[jiffer]

I guess the only way to improve Batman's voice would be to artificially enhance it instead of using Bale's (overstretched) natural voice. Surely the director and the producers discussed that idea. I wonder why they decided to use a voice that people would complain about?

I have to admit that I did not like Batman's voice the first time I saw Batman Begins. Actually, as much as it pains me to admit it now, there were several things that distracted me and prevented me from realizing at first how awesome that movie is. For example, there was a lot of old baggage in my head from watching the previous Batman movies (especially the atrocious Batman and Robin). And Christian Bale, like many other people who started out in life as a thin person and then bulked up quickly as a mature adult, has a "pencil neck". (Will Smith has a similar problem, and apparently so does Matthew McConaughey, judging by the fact that he wore a scarf constantly in the bizarre movie called Reign of Fire. McConaughey's bald head, goatee, tattoos, and cigar-chomping also reminded me of Buck Angel, which needless to say was a very significant distraction from an otherwise, uh, mediocre movie.) Anyway, I was also distracted by the way that Bale keeps his mouth open so much of the time (although it was not quite as distracting as the way that George Clooney constantly bobs his head). The Batmobile also seemed a little over-the-top for a vehicle that is supposed to be stealthy (not to mention that it looked like a modified Hummer rather than an original "Bat" design).

And Batman's voice... Well, what can I can say? I got used to it, and not only does it not bother me anymore, I think it actually fits the character. There's one thing a lot of people don't realize about works of art in general. The person creating the art is engrossed with it and spends hours and days (and several takes) watching scenes that appear on the screen for less than a minute. So their perspective is different from a first-time viewer's perspective. If you were to watch Batman deliver the line, "Swear to me!" a hundred times, you might get used to it and you might even decide that he said it just the right way. I have watched that scene about 25 times myself, and I think the voice was just about right for the occasion.

At the very least, I forget about the way he says it and concentrate on what he says. For example, it's really cool when Bruce Wayne absorbs everything that other people say to him and then repeats it back to them when they don't expect it. He learned from Falconi that he needed to learn what fear and desperation feel like, he learned from R'as that he needed to conquer his fear and become a "legend" instead of a mere a man, and he learned from both of them that he needed to use fear as a weapon against his enemies. But the best example is when Rachel asked Batman to at least tell her his real name, and he said, "It's not who I am underneath, but what I DO that defines me." I didn't really like the way he said it, but it was a very cool thing for him to say. He was just repeating what Rachel had said to him earlier in the movie when she thought he was a carefree, irresponsible playboy who wasn't doing anything useful with his life. "Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." Talk about a slap in the face when he had just single-handedly helped the police capture Falconi AND saved her life from the thugs who were going to kill her. It was very ironic, and you could tell that Bruce was dying to tell her that he was in fact doing something worthwhile and the playboy image she had of him was all wrong. When he had the chance to tell her he was Batman, he threw it back in her face in a gentle, ironic way, and it must have made her melt on the inside in one of those "Oh, my God" moments. When I think about the psychological complexity of those exchanges, I tend to forget Batman's voice.

 

[Insomniator]

Don't wanna waste another topic on this so I'll just ask here; do you guys think the theaters will still be crazy packed this weekend?

I'm around central Jersey, gf and I saw it sunday afternoon last week and there was like... 20 people in the theater. Tonight my parents
want to come see it again but we don't want to go if its gonna be long ass lines and sold out half the times...

I'm guessing the most popular movie ever will be crazy for more than 2 weekends correct?

 

[foghorn67]

I didn't see anything wrong with Batman's voice. Everyone in Gotham knows he talks that way to conceal his identity.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: irishScott
Personally, I'm waiting for The Penguin. Now that'll be awesome.

There won't be a Penguin. Nolan said the character is too camp.

 

[wiredspider]

Originally posted by: foghorn67
I didn't see anything wrong with Batman's voice. Everyone in Gotham knows he talks that way to conceal his identity.

But you think with all those fancy gadgets he has, he would have something that makes it sound more normal/realistic...

And thanks to this thread, I know that Joker switched the addresses (was wondering about that when I watched last night and though maybe I just heard it wrong...)

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: wiredspider
[But you think with all those fancy gadgets he has, he would have something that makes it sound more normal/realistic...

I thought with all those fancy gadgets he has, he would come up with something that would keep a couple of dogs from taking him down. (Tranquilizers? Stew bones? Artificial rabbits?) Then the Joker would not have been able to beat the crap out of him. But maybe that would have spoiled the climax.

 

[OutHouse]

just got back from seeing it. one part that felt really weak is when the Joker burned the pile of money with the asian business guy on top of it. what happend to the money and did the joker burn the guy up?

 

[invidia]

Originally posted by: Citrix
just got back from seeing it. one part that felt really weak is when the Joker burned the pile of money with the asian business guy on top of it. what happend to the money and did the joker burn the guy up?

The Joker didn't get that money out of this whole ordeal. The Joker's main motives of committing crime is just for his amusement. It's just his personality to kill, torture, and cause panic for his entertainment.

This trait makes Joker one of the most memorable villains in entertainment unlike others who do it for money, power, or revenge.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Citrix
just got back from seeing it. one part that felt really weak is when the Joker burned the pile of money with the asian business guy on top of it. what happend to the money and did the joker burn the guy up?

Money burned up. The guy burned up. One thing you'll notice in the film is that even though it is very violent, very little is actually shown. The pencil trick happened so fast that it was left to your imagination. Same thing with Joker and his knife and that one gangster.

Nolan pushed the limits of what a PG-13 rating is by having alot of violence but most of it being bloodless or just off-screen.

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Money burned up. The guy burned up.

Yup.

Also, when the Joker said he was going to have the gangster cut into little pieces and fed to the dogs, I assume he meant it, and I assume that's what happened (off screen). He's a man of his word. The dogs seemed to like their new master, so I guess they enjoyed that special treat.

But some people felt that part of the movie was "really weak"? Sheesh. I don't think it would have had the same effect if the Joker had drooled over the money like a normal gangster instead of acting like a complete psycho.