[Movie] The Dark Knight (Batman Begins Sequel)

I remain wonderously skeptical with the casting. Yes, I wanted Hamill too - not only because he is the Joker but because there now seems to be an age casting problem with this movie. Throwing Ryan Phillippe in just makes it sound like we're shooting from the hip to the 90210 crowd for pretty boys. This isn't saying Ryan isn't a good actor - but the aged involved is stupid. The Joker should be older - considering that he's suppose to be the utter opposite of Batman, why not do the same with their age.

Despite the strength of Batman Begins, lets see where this goes. Not everything is as fortunate as Spider Man 2.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by acid

However the most commonly accepted origin for the character is the one written by Alan Moore for 1988's "Batman; The Killing Joke".

Unless your name is Alex Ross

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by MetheGelfling

Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams in the 89 Batman, but maybe I was too young to remember comic dorks complaining about him being black.

Billy Dee Williams was in the first two movies because he was also contracted to later play Two Face. They had to buy his contract out when Schumacher wanted someone more bankable as a villian - namely Tommy Lee Jones.

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm on the fence. Ledger sounds like he's doing a bad impression of Jack in the teaser - but a teaser is something terrible to judge anything by. I also don't think he has the acting chops for the role (nor do I think that the Joker should be so young, but hey thats just me).

I remain a healthy skeptic. Lightning doesn't always strike twice.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Batman had a motif in the last movie - a two note ascending "horn call" - and it sounds like Hans is just playing around with that again.

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Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

The score has been leaked, and I posted it both in my journal and in the Film Score sharing thread.

Saying you enjoy something is one thing.

Saying its something you enjoy and give out for others when its not yours to give is something else.

Saying its something you enjoy, give to others when its not yours and when you're trying to work in the industry, is monumentally stupid.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by NovaX

Lehah is a crusader for the little guy.

Harlan Ellison sent over 200 bricks, postage due to a publishing house for similar reasons.

I will, one day, mail someone the rest of that same brick shithouse.

FELIPE NO

Movie Exec #1: Hey, how do we make our movie more successful?

Movie Exec #2: How about we have people use word of mouth to promote it, to get the public interested and expecting it long before the movie is finished!

Movie Exec #1: Thats a great idea - but its not enough...

Movie Exec #3: How about we show the movie free to a bunch of fans, thereby cutting our income and help hurt the movie!

Movie Exec #2: Genius!

Movie Exec #1: No wonder we get the big bucks!

Movie Exec #2: Yeah!

Movie Exec #3: I did the same thing with Serenity and look how much money THAT movie made!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

This would be funny and relevant if TDK was a niche film as opposed to a summer blockbuster poised to rake in hundreds of millions of dollar.

The logic stands - why would you undercut yourself by letting the fans see the movie for free? You wouldn't.

Doctors didn't remove Temari's gallbladder for free. Lawyers don't go to trial for free. Why would you let people see a movie for free? Its stupid.

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

Alas, it's just another useless troll.

Its all well and good you know words like TROLL but you obviously don't know WHY they *don't* work here. I *explained* the problem and why it doesn't work and you happened to not like it. I assume because you're one of the people that dressed up as the Joker and ran around like a goober?

Oh, so you're *biased* against the facts. Clever for you, I suppose.

Viral Marketing doesn't work for one simple reason - when you take marketing away from its context, no one knows what you're selling.

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Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

Free promotion.

Free promotion is when you hand out free samples of a product, so they know if they want to buy it.

When you jump in front of cars dressed as a clown, people don't know if you're some douche in make-up or Ronald McDonald or Cesar Romero come back from the dead.

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

The few thousand they will lose in these free tickets pales in comparison to the money they will save with the free promotion they will be getting from the people who will get to see the movie for free.

I don't see how losing "a few thousand" is reasonable. The movie is going to do well - so why would you want to give up MORE money?

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

All of whom have probably raved about how pumped they are to their friends, and then their friends have told their friends, and the cycle continues.

Totally different subject - but how is this any different than word of mouth? Warner Bros depended upon that for countless movies - so why invest in a loss in ticket sales?

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

So no, the logic actually doesn't stand. Especially not for a movie like The Dark Knight. For Serenity, maybe, because it was a niche film with a small fanbase as it was

A loss of money is a loss of money is a loss of money.

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

but even then, the free promotion it probably got from the viewers who got free tickets probably gave it a little extra push it wouldn't have otherwise had.

To tell who? The fans?

Wait, they already saw it.

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

You didn't *explain* anything, you simply fagged up yet another perfectly good thread.

Oh, so you decide that calling me a troll after explaining my point - and then acting it yourself is somehow defensible? I see that Keene education went far.

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

How does it flat-out not work? This is just one example, but Cloverfield wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it was if it wasn't for the viral marketing campaign that it had.

And what was that? Monsters smashing buildings? I must have missed that.

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

Allow me to fix your quote for you:

Since you're not in the mix since I don't talk to you since you're an internet genius - I live with lesbians now, thank you.

And yes, one of them is attractive.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Kolba

They weren't lesbians until you moved in though, right?

To coin a good cartoon based off of a terrible movie - "They became lesbians because they got the best man anyone could ever have."

Originally Posted by Kolba

Lehah are you just upset that you didn't jump in front of any cars dressed as a clown?

No, I'm upset I couldn't dress you like a clown and push you out into highway traffic.

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It looks like a Bus Terminal poster. Wait a week after the movie is out - if thats what it is, they flood Ebay for a month and then are never seen again.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Sewer Overflow

Bale goes the extra mile to fully disguise himself, AND hammers the point of Batman home - To instill fear in his enemies.

Perhaps an unfair comparison but as damn good an actor as Bale is, its still not Kevin Conroy. Two entirely different mediums and approaches but a number of Bale's lines in Batman Begins (especially "WHEAR HAR THA DRUGS?!") didn't come off as ... cleanly as Conroy does it.

Then again, Conroy has been at it for ten years and actually has gone so far to literally dissect Bruce Wayne into Hamlet.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Beard Overflow

I think you nailed the biggest reason right there.

I think the other reason is that Conroy is a theater actor. Aside from doing some small bit parts and a TV show, everything else is Shakespeare and the like.

Similarly, this is why we like Ewan McGreggor and Hugh Jackman and Bob Peck. Theres something to be said about that particular kind of training.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Living Legend

Not trying to be an asshole, but you need to lighten up a little bit.

You realize what you just said is "I'm not an asshole but I'm going to act like it anyway."

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Living Legend

I wasn't trying to attack the person, I just don't think the responses should have been carried out the way they were.

A nickle's worth of free advice - stop talking for a while.

Review:

The problem with The Dark Knight is the exact same problem with V For Vendetta - hand-holding. Both movies set up specific push-button pins to be knocked down at the conveience of the writer and not the story. "Show, don't tell" Mark Twain famously said and The Dark Knight breaks that rule many times over.

Its greatest fault is exposition. The first scene is a set-up, not for character but for character *naming*. By name, the Joker is mentioned several times over in the most blatantly awful way possible: several of his cronies rob a bank with dialouge in the following...

ROBBER #1: Boy, whats up with that clown looking guy that hired us?

ROBBER #2: The Joker? That make-up scares me!

ROBBER #3: Yeah, I hear he paints his face and his hair is green!

ROBBER #4: (Other room) Boy, I better not fuck with my boss, the Joker!

There is no need to know why these people work for him - they're wearing clown masks as they rob the bank. We get the connection before a word is spoken. One mention would have done, even an insinuation - not enough expository detail to make a police sketch out of.

However, the exposition of character motivation is even worse. Instead of leaving moral judgements to the audience to interperet, we're brow-beaten with huge, long scenes of talking as characters discuss things like crime, the nature of chaos and mythos with the same dry, literal sense of a Jane Austin novel. The last scene in the movie involves Batman being chased out of a Gotham building, through the city streets and into the "daylight" above. As far as symbolism goes, thats on the level of Superman / Jesus or Hal 9000 / Humanity. But then add to it a huge, long voice over by Jim Gordon, explaining to the audience the great sacrifices made by Batman to uphold a greater ideal of justice and personal commitment.

Another astonishing idiotic twist that was pulled out of the hat pretty frequently was the long winded "character motivation" essay. I assume Nolan realized too late that no one was doing anything with all this jumping around and fighting police officers, so instead of leaving the audience to think for themselves on any moral subject, he decided what you should think. To again quote Twain, this time about James Fennimore Cooper's novels - "Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one." Nolan creates similar problems by attempting bad comedy through worse Greek Theater. BATMAN MUST MAKE A CHOICE IN A DEADLY GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE - WHICH PERSON WILL HE SAVE? Of course he saves the obvious one because that sets up the second half of the movie! Leave no stone unturned, eh Mr Nolan?

The shining example of this is the scene where Gordon is shot dead, brought back and then Batman's girlfriend is killed. You don't jerk your audience around like that; you can't kill someone, bring THEM back and then actually kill someone else. Thats BAD writing and creates a giant hole in terms of pacing. Stop fucking with your plot developments, Nolan.

Heath Ledger's performance is amazingly bland. I should note I never found him much of an actor but the talk about his role in this movie is beyond overblown. Half of it is his fault - theres no sense of character motivation nor is there any exposition toward such (though I'll give them credit for avoiding any origin explaination), so now we have this "crazy" running over half the movie.

Yes, the Joker introduces himself as "an agent of chaos". For a guy who's suppose to be chaotic, you sure do have a lot of elaborate set-ups. Isn't that contradictory? More over, it makes less sense since its never bothered to establish WHY hes this way. So we're left blowing in the breeze. More over, every set-up the Joker does is something I've seen already. Calling a pager to set off a bomb has been done how many times? Using knives to make repeated copycat attacks is from how many other movies? For someone that everyone talks about with the same breath as Academy Award, the character carries absolutely nothing at any point in the movie.

I enjoyed Batman Begins immensely, but this movie is a fucking awful mess made to pander first year college students between drinking games.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Keep dreaming, kids.

Yeah, what was the last Oscar given to a dead actor? Peter Finch for Network? Trying to compare Finch's broken-down newsanchor with what I saw last night isn't fair to Finch.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Karasu

Spoiler:

Who didn't love the 'white eyes' with Batman.

Me. Saw that gimick before in Batman Forever.

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Originally Posted by AniMechanic

They did that in Forever? I must be suppressing the traumatic memories of watching it.

The part where he destroys the Riddler's stupid TV gizmo at the end of the movie.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Why would you have someone other than Bale take over now that he's identified with the character?

Also, Bale has offically stated that if they introduce Robin, he's not doing future movies.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

Making a feature-length Batman film where the major plot thread is "Batman is hurt and can't do a goddamn thing" isn't exactly compelling. Bane is probably one of the easier villains to bring to the screen, but the rest of the Knightfall arc is just an endless series of awkward winces.

This is true. Nueva-Batman ended up just being a lot of stupid thought-boxes and him talking about "The System" over and over like Gollum.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

The only member of the extended bat-family that really fits into the films thematically is possibly the Cassandra Cain Batgirl. Anything else would just drive the films into the same painfully-campy ground as the last series.

I think a Batgirl story could be done if its handled correctly. It would be very hard to do, but the cartoon series did it very well (mostly because it was sparingly done until the WB season)

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Cat9

You like things too much. That makes you uncool.

No, the problem is that the statement *is* a sweeping one by design.

The year isn't over yet and we're already saying who should be nominated for what? Have you or I or anyone else here seen every movie to come out for 2008? Of course not - we're half-way done, lets see what else there is before everyone agrees to blow each other over a fucking sympathy vote because the fucker is dead.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I'd say the biggest reason you didn't like it was exactly what you said: You're not a Batman fan.

Eh, I'm a huge Batman fan. Hell, I know who Ducard was from the comics before they used the name and not the character in Batman Begins - and I was disappointed in this movie.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I said it would be hard for someone who didn't like Batman to care and get involved.

Well, tell that to the movie writers who kept shoving expository remarks about HOW CA-RAZY the Joker is.

For people that didn't need to know anything about Batman before walking into the movie, they sure did treat everyone like a fucking idiot.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Drakken

Either way, I fail to see how that's an issue big enough to dwell on.

Because I'm an intellectual in my everyday life, I don't like being talked to like an idiot. You may not mind having things explained to you in strained exposition in a pointless scene - but I do because my brain works.

Its not my fault you're stupid - but its because of people like you that the movie pandered the dialouge to such an extent.

Jam it back in, in the dark.