Examining 'The Dark Knight' [Massive spoilers without tags - you are warned]

[Krensky]

The Joker burning up his pile of the money illustrated to even the mobsters that here is an unknowable and uncontrollable force in their world, much like the Batman. "What this town needs is a better class of criminal...", and even here he's just playing to his audience. The Joker seems to really only open up to his core with Bats. I don't ever want to see this version of Joker's origin story, he's much more effective without one.

Actually, they pretty much gave the broad outline of his origin in the first movie. Criminal in Arkham, escaped in the riot, exposed to fear gas and the Batman.

Crazy + drugs + trerror = Even crazier.

[Sletchman]

The Joker burning up his pile of the money illustrated to even the mobsters that here is an unknowable and uncontrollable force in their world, much like the Batman. "What this town needs is a better class of criminal...", and even here he's just playing to his audience. The Joker seems to really only open up to his core with Bats. I don't ever want to see this version of Joker's origin story, he's much more effective without one.

Actually, they pretty much gave the broad outline of his origin in the first movie. Criminal in Arkham, escaped in the riot, exposed to fear gas and the Batman.

Crazy + drugs + trerror = Even crazier.

Then his fingerprints and likely DNA would have been on file.  I know gotham has problems, but they still fingerprint crims.

To Forcegypsie: I agree totally - its easy to empathise with a man who's past you know - "Its not his fault, he's the victim of environment / circumstance".  By not having a past nothing need to justified.  Also, I loved that scene of him burning the money, you could see the fear in the eyes of the crims that someone would do what he's done with essentially no motivation.

[ThunderMonkey]

I thought that the money was the other guys... The Joker kept his half and that's why one of them tried to stop him.

[nfactor13]

I thought that the money was the other guys... The Joker kept his half and that's why one of them tried to stop him.

Only seen it once, but I had thought the line was, "I'm only burning my half."

[ThunderMonkey]

I thought that the money was the other guys... The Joker kept his half and that's why one of them tried to stop him.

Only seen it once, but I had thought the line was, "I'm only burning my half."

Maybe it was his half... I guess that means I'll have to see it again... sigh... I did sit at my desk last night wishing I had the movie on video to watch again. That's a pretty quick turnaround for me.

[Forcegypsy]

The only movie I've seen in theatres more than once this year has been Ironman. Batman will be the second. Ironman surprised me in the best way possible. I'm not an Ironman fan (comics), I only know of the character from brief cross-overs with comics I actually followed. Batman is a fave of mine (although my involvement with the character has always been through the darker lens of the Graphic Novels).

The focused execution of both productions, as well as the stellar acting and almost casual cinematic brilliance mean that I'm more than willing to encourage further production of films in this vein. The actors seem to be enjoying it too, because I don't get the sense that any of them are sleepwalking through these roles.

[gaghiel42]

Well, I first have to say that I loved it.  There were only a few parts that irked me.  First was the fact that they didn't kill the joker at the end.  Honestly, who could replace Ledger after that?  It was a decision that can only hurt the films from this point on because no one will be the same.  The other problem I had was Bale's batman voice.  Not so much the voice, but the whole "I talk through my TEETH" thing he had going for him.  Just distracted me until the joker showed up, then I stopped noticing so much.

I'm curious now to see who/what is the villain in the third one.  Since they've set up the series' characters as such loners its hard to picture Robin showing up, or Harlequin or Catwoman.  I could maybe see something like Man-Bat or Killer Croc, but so far this time around, they are trying to keep things quasi-believable and those would be harder to picture.   Perhaps Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, or the Riddler could work.  I hope they don't try to reinvent the penguin again.  Danny DeVito pretty much nailed that one already.

It might also be interesting to see Bane done correctly instead of the walking monster saying "Bomb..." all the time...

[Desertpuma]

I think they could do Riddler very well. I would love to see Nolan's take on Catwoman and/or Harley Quinn (Somehow I can just imagine Katee Sackhoff doing Harley Quinn.)

[Golden Dragon]

Actually, they pretty much gave the broad outline of his origin in the first movie. Criminal in Arkham, escaped in the riot, exposed to fear gas and the Batman.

Then his fingerprints and likely DNA would have been on file.  I know gotham has problems, but they still fingerprint crims.

This was one of the few continuity problems I noticed. I don't know why someone didn't catch this one. arg.

Other comments:
1. The Batpod. Am I the only one that thinks machine guns are a bit out of character? Oh, and the way it separated from the Tumbler was a bit, um, contrived. (I also never liked the prone "combat" position of the Tumbler.)

2. The whole ferry thing was a problem. If Gotham is supposed to be NYC at its worst, they would have had no trouble finding someone to pull the pin. Now, if the ranking cop threw the detonator over early to avoid such a problem, I might have believed it. The actual outcome in the movie seemed contrived. On the other hand, the Joker setting up his social experiment was a stroke of genius.

3. Where and when did Joker get his time to plan and set up his plans? It seemed like at one point he had 4 irons in the fire. Yikes! And out of curiosity, what was his final body count? How many hundreds did he kill?

4. With the bank robbery and the magic pencil trick, they did a wonderful job establishing Joker's character.

5. I did not expect to see the smashing of the signal where it actually occurred in the movie.

6. I'm enjoying the quasi-philosophy of the movies. Although there is one difficult decision that Batman does not make: kill the Joker. Or at least, don't save him. He has made that choice before.  I do like how they tied the ending to the quip"You either die the hero..." And the whole ongoing conflict over who represents the hope of Gotham.

7. Lot's of good quips. One I really liked: "Mr. Reese, you think your client spends his nights beating up criminals with his bare hands...."

[gaghiel42]

For some reason, that would fit very well, as long as she isn't right alongside Joker.  She's really got that muscular build that would work solo, but not as the lankey sidekick that pals around with the J-man.   Plus, with Joker the way he was, I'd be hard pressed to imagine how crazy she'd have to be to last very long as his compatriot.  Thats really the only reason I don't see her working out.

And, Bruce has not yet matured to the point of becoming the mentor figure, so Robin isn't really ready to make his entrance.

Oh, that reminds me of one other thing that made me mad.  They spoiled a perfect opportunity to introduce Gordon's daughter aka Batgirl by inventing him a son that was his favorite.  I don't think little 'jimmy' even exists in the comics.  To me, that would have been a perfect place to toss in at least for fan service's sake someone that could eventually be Batgirl.

As far as catwoman goes, it could work out for the villain/antihero role, but they really would have to work on Batman/Bruce's whole relationship woes thing a lot more if they were gonna do it right.  Right now, he seems too hardcore to really be phased by the appearance of Catwoman.  Unless she was played by someone like Siena Guillory who has the bad ass side down, but is also hot.

At least moreso than dear ol blown up Rachel...

Noone told Harvey that he was only alive because Batman went to save her, and the joker had swapped the places around.  They just kinda left that one hanging there, which was a sad thing.  I can't imagine how two-face would have reacted if he had found that out.

[Crafty_Alex]

Gordon's daughter is clearly visible at the end...she's just never called by name

[Golden Dragon]

Gordon's daughter is clearly visible at the end...she's just never called by name

And for some odd reason, I have a vague recollection that Gordon did have a son in the comics, and the son died young.

And Alex is right, there were two Gordon children in the movie.

[ThunderMonkey]

I thought the same thing about Gordon's son, and I can't recall if he had one myself. I was afraid that Two-Face would actually kill the boy or he met some accident at the end.

He can't become Robin, because at that point Gordon would figure out who is Batman.

I thought the guns on the Bat-pod were to be used to clear a path primarily and not as an offensive weapon. It's low enough to shoot out engine blocks to stop cars. That pod just doesn't have the stopping power as the Tumbler.

There was a mention in the first movie about Gordon's wife having a baby girl. (I think...)

[gaghiel42]

I was more getting to the fact that they didn't really take the time to mention her at all.  There is a young girl there sure, but she's very young and would take considerable time to become a Batgirl type.  At least longer than I'm sure they will wait in any sequels to come.  Ah well, I wonder how many more Batman movies they can make it through this go around.

[Desertpuma]

For some reason, that would fit very well, as long as she isn't right alongside Joker.  She's really got that muscular build that would work solo, but not as the lankey sidekick that pals around with the J-man.   Plus, with Joker the way he was, I'd be hard pressed to imagine how crazy she'd have to be to last very long as his compatriot.  Thats really the only reason I don't see her working out.

If they do Harley Quinn, she would have to be a fan of the Joker or someone who follows his belief in the chaos and anarchy not the sidekick who follows him around. It would just work best that way and still bring a resonance of Ledger's performance.