Slashdot Mirror
Batman Discussion
I won't be reading it because I haven't been able to go yet, but I suspect a goodly number of you have already partaken in the latest Batman flick that taunts me. Mocks me. And knows that I don't have time today or probably any time this week (unless there is a movie theater near the OSCON venue?) Anyway -- here is the official place to talk about the biggest geek movie out until the X-Files comes out next week, and I have similar frustrations.
AMAZING!
na nananannana BATMAN
I miss old school batman on the black and white. Those were the days.
I see some Academy Awards in this movie's future.
Because Heath Ledger deserves one.
End of story.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
lets just say the Joker has the best "magic trick" to be played on the bigscreen.
It's the latest Joker flick, Batman is just a secondary character.
It didn't disappoint me. I enjoyed the portrayal of The Joker. I'm sure there'll be much debate about Ledger vs. Nicholson (as well as endless Batman/Alternate Universe Joker-on-Joker slashfic).
I also enjoyed that there wasn't any silly microwave/waterborn silliness. I know, I know, comic book movie. But still...
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I hate the part where Rachel Dawes DIAF's.
Karma: -2147483648 (Mostly affected by integer overflow)
Batman is for the birds.
Why not just leave your money at the theatre, then you don't have to sit thru it.
Who or what is Batman? Some crazy American dream I guess!
Great action scenes, good story, interesting twists. I loved it!
Brittany Spears?
Paris Hilton?
Lee Meriwether?
I'm curious....
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Bruce Willis really dead the entire film. That's why the kid can see him and everyone else ignores him!
What? Oh, sorry. Wrong film.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Oh noes, I've no mod points!
I'd have modded you informative!
I think this movie is going to start a new Holywood curse - if you play a villian in a superhero movie you better make sure they kill your character off at the end, or you'll end up dead in RL. Definitely lives up to the hype. I just wish Bale's batman voice was a little less forced.
I'll go ahead and comment here but keep it short and sweet. Pros - Heath Ledger was the epitome of psychosis. BRILLIANT acting. In the original Batman movie (think '60s) and later in the Burton films the Joker was more or less a silly villain. He was out for revenge or just doing it for the kicks but he wasn't crazy. He had his fun and went home. The Dark Knight's Joker was fantastically evil. I will see this movie again just to re-watch Ledger's performance. Cons - Some cheesey dialogue. The Bat-Bike was so-so. Scarecrow and Two Face seemed under used. All in all I'd give this movie a nine out of ten. Ten out of ten for acting and sheer awesome. Eight out of ten for cheese and missed opportunities.
Can't wait for Batman Returns..... Again!
I would see it again (this time in Imax) just for the Joker scenes.
The movie was brilliant overall, and Ledger's performance was particularly noteworthy. But the editing? Yes, we know Batman gets around and appears/disappears suddenly and without warning. But there are ways of communicating that while still enabling the audience to know what the hell is going on. Sometimes I was so confused that I wasn't sure whether or not I was supposed to be confused. Instead of "Oh, I wonder what happened there, they must explain it soon," a lot of the time the experience was more like "Okay, what just happened?"
Did anyone else share this perception?
Obviously Cmdr T won't be reading this, but the Lloyd Center cinemas are very close to the OSCON venue - two stops on the MAX, or about half a mile if he feels like walking.
http://www.fandango.com/regallloydmall8cinema_aaapq/theaterpage
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
I haven't seen it. Two old men living alone trying to groom a younger man who wears tight body fitting latex while he chases after another man who wears makeup - sounds way to gay for me!
I'm watching Mamma Mia instead - it was gurls! ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I mean, don't get me wrong, Christian Bale is a good actor; but to be honest, when it comes to movies about the Black Knight, I don't really think that anybody can top Martin Lawrence's performance.
oblig prayer to bob: Even though I walk through the dark valley of socially immature nerds, because you are with me, I fear no harm.
That being said, I think I'll chime in...and no this isn't a troll, it's how I sincerely felt after seeing it last Thursday. This is a quote from another discussion board...needless to say my opinion wasn't popular, but I stand by it:
"no guys, the movie really did suck.
The directing was abysmal, the writing was amateur at best, and the editing...was probably done by a college intern.
It's a shame too because they had some great actors in that cast. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, etc.
'Batman Begins' was good, it was simple and focused. 'The Dark Knight' was a mess of loose ends. This film was 3 hours of discordant noise, gimmicks, and tedium...a giant wasted opportunity. A Deus ex machine gun blasting the audience into stupified dazed submission. Utter Shock n' Awe MTV sweatshop excrement.
Tell us how you really feel.
OK I will, Keaton/Nicholson will be remembered 50 years from now as the definitive Batman film. 'The Dark Knight' won't even be rentable."
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
If I remember correctly, the Lloyd Center Cinema is not to far away from the Oregon Convention Center (maybe a couple of blocks).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096895/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's about the reaction I had, which seems to be unusual -- most people I know thought it was fantastically amazingly wonderful, with a small minority who thought it sucked. Very much like Batman Begins: I may be the only person I know who thought it was ... well, pretty good. Not bad, not great, a decent way to spend a couple of hours and munch some popcorn.
The editing was better than in BB, which pleased me; the abrupt jumps of that movie really irritated me. Bale is, as before, good but not great. Ledger's Joker performance deserves all the praise that's been heaped on it -- it's not just the glamor of a Star Tragically Dead Before His Time(tm). He's genuinely scary, and he pretty much owns every scene he's in. (As opposed to whatsisname who played the Scarecrow in BB, and makes a brief cameo appearance in TDK, who I thought was one of the least interesting and charismatic bat-antagonists of all time.) Everyone else is, again, pretty good.
[shrug] The 1989 version remains the definitive Batman film adaptation for me, but this will do for now. If they keep the franchise going, Bond-style, maybe they can bring Bale back in a generation or so to do TDK Returns. That would be cool.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I think in the end the pace of the movie became so fast it was almost impossible for me to absorb what was going on. I also think it was kind of difficult for me to figure out the cause-and-effect relationship between all the things that were happenings out there.Still trying to figure out how one thing led to another.
Not that that's saying much but can anyone elaborate as to why this is a big geek movie? Does it have lots of computing/IT stuff in it giving it more geek appeal and more reason to have it's very own uncategorized Slashdot article than any other similar film?
Or is it just the same, tired old Batman/Spiderman/Superman/Whateverman set of stories reiterated over and over, hyped to hell because that's what Hollywood does but isn't actually very good but with a bit of extra hype because it has a now dead actor in it?
Tell me you're "joking". The debate should be between Ledger and Mark Hammil, who did the voice of the Joker in the Batman Animated Series. Jack Nicholson should be compared to Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face (The steaming pile known as Batman Forever) for overacting a role. He was awful as the joker, while Ledger was absolutely terrifying. Hammil at least had a hell of a Joker laugh.
but this is Slashdot, we discuss cool stuff like computers, rockets and other technology, not typically movies about manbats in latex.
I'm not a Heath Ledger fan by any stretch of the imagination. However, I wouldn't be able to tell you that it was Heath Ledger under the make-up if I didn't know that going into the movie. He did an excellent job abandoning all personal characteristics to take on his role.
Beyond that, it was an awesome high action movie.
Seems to follow hollywood's classic "Heros journey" storyline...
I believe that far predates Hollywood. Or the United States. Or the English language. It was just given the name "Hero's Journey" or "Monomyth" recently.
He must be new here, this CmdrTaco.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
I have to see this Movie! XD
Loved the movie, loved the portrayal of the Joker, just one question. Who is the next Batman Villian? Since Ledger presumably rendered the Joker unportrayable (literally, I can't imagine anyone being able to even come close), I imagine they'll use someone else from the Batman universe, but who? My guess is the Riddler.
The ethical dilemma on the two ferries toward the end of the flick was excellent. The Joker's rants are enough to make you think (if you haven't already) but that one line was really, truly excellent:
"Well, we're still here, which means they haven't pushed the button."
Above all else, the best thing about this movie was the trip into the different aspects of the human condition. Whether it's the chaotic Joker, fair Two-Face, pure Fox, kind Alfred, or incorruptible Batman, or any of the others, we get, as The New Yorker paraphrased, a rare glimpse into the abyss.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Feel free to mod me down, but at what point did Slashdot become a run of the mill message board where we discuss the latest movies and TV?
I'll admit I was slightly frustrated when we received two headline articles that were slightly masked advertisement for this movie. However, this article doesn't even attempt to well... be an article, or create a veneer of providing useful information.
Yes, I'm sure the movie is amazing, but is it really necessary to have a few articles about it followed by a straight-out discussion?
Oh, and get off my lawn.
If you think seeing Batman on some shitty ass laptop is even remotely comparable to seeing it on a giant IMAX screen, I have a pencil trick I'd like to show you ...
Disappearing Pencil Trick!
This is from Scribbalative Agincourting:
"New York's alter ego, Gotham City, is under attack. Bombs kill civilians indiscriminately. Panic spreads like wildfire. The perpetrator, a mysterious self-styled 'agent of chaos', has no apparent motive. Holy terror! Has the new Batman flick plundered its plot from 9/11? The imagery here is blatant: firefighters framed in tableau against the smouldering rubble of Downtown; politicians cashing in on the paranoia; bound hostages used to relay demands on television; the extraordinary rendition of a foreign suspect; a crusade against an 'evildoer' that turns more personal vendetta than reasoned response. Then there is the film's poster, which shows a flaming, wing-shaped hole punched through a smoking office tower. You can't disavow gratuity here - there is no such scene in the actual film." - Jeff Dawson, "Has the New Batman Plundered Its Plot from 9/11?" The Sunday Times
Also: the "terrorist" demolishes a building; Batman justifies invasive "supertaps" on all cellular phones to catch the terrorist; there's a cover-up of an elected official to preserve peace, and more.
Batman is first-rate, imperial propaganda. It soothes our conscience. It makes us feel good about the dark work of empire. We are so misunderstood. We must be hated for righteousness' sake. Our virtue is hidden. We're the real victim. Augustus would be so proud of us.
//de ~ 9cimi
First I want to say I loved it, easily the best movie I've seen this year. Nolan did a great job at keeping it dark and gritty, and I can be satisfied with that alone. Some of the aspects of the movie really did seem forced though. For one thing it seemed like Harvey made the transition to Two Face very quickly. Yes, there he went through a lot, but his character never gave off a sense that it affected him all that much until the end. There was only one scene to really show that he might've been unhinged somewhat before becoming Two Face, and even then he seemed to be very much in control. It just seemed like there wasn't enough foreshadowing that he was capable of being a true monster. Aaron Eckhart gave a great performance, but I think if Harvey had been given more a backstory (such as how they introduced him in Batman: TAS, talking to a shrink) the overall effect would've been more profound.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
Anybody else catch that?
Anybody else think of Bush when they caught it?
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Heath Ledger has been by far the best Joker he lived up to the comic book character. Jack Nickelson was good in Batman, but he was Jack Nickelson playing the Joker. However Heath Ledger wasn't the Heath Ledger playing the Joker he was the Joker.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Since discussion without debate is boring, and I think the vast majority of us agree that 'Dark Knight' was a great movie, I'll throw this out there:
It's good, but it's not even close to this good. Feel free to respond with a fist to the face.
I came here for a good argument
Now that you mention it -- no. Be very careful about getting your phiolosophy and history from fictional sources. Sometimes a movie is just a movie.
I'm not a human, but I play one on T.V.
Don't get me wrong, he's good - very good - but it's not Academy Award level acting. If he had lived, nobody would be discussing an award.
Certainly, it will get nominations for cinematography for Pfister (who will win), writing for the brothers Nolan, and production design for Crowley (who will also win), but that's it.
If the Academy chose to recognise the efforts of the only people who actually knowingly risk their lives for film, stunt people, then this would win as well. But, the Academy is blind to this irony, so they won't.
that you are being insulting by asserting your completely arbitrary and subjective standards of what constitutes being a geek as canon and law
but then it occured to me that it is entirely geeky to be so emotionally caustic on such a trivial and pointless matter
(like arguing about whether batman would beat superman or visa versa? hint hint, wink wink)
so carry on then, oh self-appointed geek adequacy arbiter. its very geeky of you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One thing I noticed, and liked, was the fairly obvious nod to the old comics when it came to how they handled Two-Face's disfigurement.
The bit with the back side of the mouth, looking like he's going "grrrr!", and the eyeball floating in the socket - that look is pretty much lifted straight from some of the old Batman comics, as far as how Two-Face looked.
It kinda sent a chill up my back - when he first turns his head, I had a flashback to my youth when I was big into comics, remembering how Two-Face was illustrated back then.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
Batman shot first.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
To be sure, Heath Ledger stole the show. I still enjoyed Christian Bale's Batman (though he needs a throat lozenge while in the suit) and thought the rest of the cast did a bang-up job, but Ledger perfectly captured both the madness and the "hilarity" of the Joker. Nicholson doesn't hold a candle to this.
I say with the utmost sincerity that his was a performance to die for.
The movie was well written, too. I kept expecting things to happen, and they didn't; what did far surpassed what I expected. The dialog was witty, nicely worded, and delivered well. There were two or three points during the movie that I was sure it was over, that they would just wrap things up and do something in the next film. But they never let that happen.
I don't believe that any minute of the two-and-a-half hour film was wasted. I thought Batman Begins was good, and was expecting a lot from The Dark Knight, but I had no idea that this is what I would be watching.
If I had to sum it up in a word? Epic.
"Why so serious?"
Remember - your only vote that matters anymore is where you spend your money.
So - why vote FOR the actions of Time Warner?
Yes, I thought it was an interesting parallel. I appreciated the ending to the story about the jewel thief, as well.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Typical Hollywood action flick. Looks like a video game. No script to speak of. No story to speak of. So yes, most people would consider it a "good" movie.
I don't respond to AC's.
Here's the only plot point I didn't get - You know the part where the sleezeball lawyer wants to reveal Batman's identity, and the Joker threatens to blow up a hospital if nobody kills him? Why didn't they just kill the lawyer? You have to figure that evacuating every hospital in Gotham would kill untold numbers of people who were on life support or otherwise in critical condition. I'd imagine definitely in the thousands. All for what, to save the life of this one guy? Call me Spock, but I think this would definitely be a situation of "the good of the many versus the good of the one." Plus, that was one loose end that was never tied up. What happens to the lawyer at the end of the movie? Surely people will remember him, and remember that he knows Batman's identity. "So hey, remember that guy we sacrificed thousands of patients in order to save? Didn't he know the identity of Batman or something? Gee, that would come in handy now that we hate Batman. Where is that guy, anyway?"
This is not a kids movie, if you are going to bring your kids be prepared for some of disturbing scenes.
I left the theater totally blown away. The movie was way more than I thought it would be. I don't say that for many movies.
James Bond in Casino Royal was another one where I was blown away by the adult dialog and edginess of the film.
All the hype around Heath Ledgers performance is absolutely mesmerizing.
The sad part is who will play the Joker now? The person who fills in for that part will have to live up to that standard.
Maybe Hollywood is starting to understand that they need to be making adult movies and let the family movies be.
I don't mean gratuitous violence but movies that are not so predictable in their direction.
/ * is nearly worthless....
Spoiler alert: I enjoyed the movie overall. Loved the action and joker was great. However there were some major plot holes. 1. When batman rescued what's her name in the Fund Raising scene ... wasn't joker still at the top of the building with all of the people? What happened with that?
2. Who put Harvy Dent and what's her name in the oil barrel rooms? Joker said he didn't do it. (This one's an interesting plothole and I think the hint "What time is it?" might have given it away ...) Maybe I'm reading more into it than there is. Possible villain for 3rd movie?
I also felt that the fall of Harvy Dent to Two-Face wasn't that believable. I believe the movie needed more attention to detail there. The scenes with him felt kind of rushed.
But this incarnation of the series has had a real problem portraying female characters as anything other than weak. In the first one, Rachel, the up and coming brilliant lawyer and assistant district attorney... carries papers. In this one, she... almost gets to speak in court, but doesn't get to. Considering she's the third leg of the Bruce-Harvey-Rachel love triangle, she should be a bit stronger of a character, instead of just a piece of fluff.
This one also turned Alfred and Lucius into minor characters, too, in spite of the depth they added in the first one.
Still, the fight scenes, with the exception of the last one in the tower with the SWAT teams coming in, were much better than the first. The director finally got away from the nauseating "only way I can show excitement is if each fight is really 100 1/3 second camera shots". I'm glad that we actually get to see Batman throw a punch and have it land from the same camera angle.
...about the jewel thief, as well.
I don't specifically remember that. Could you refresh my memory? Thanks.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Yup.. a block away from the DoubleTree. (A couple of the guys on my crew producing the event saw it 2 nights ago there) Regal Lloyd Center 10 http://preview.tinyurl.com/5mf2xu
Does it involve shoving a pencil up your asshole?
really, whats the reason for it ? isnt wall-e, for example, a major geek title in itself ? robots, full animation ? hello ? or hellboy 2 ? what separates batman from others ?
Read radical news here
If it said Bush sucks, it wouldn't be just a movie though, would it?
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
So the insane killer guy tells you that the detonator will blow up the OTHER boat. That you would be SAFE?!?
And you fucking BELIEVED him?
THAT was the problem I saw with that scene. Wouldn't the Joker do something more ... Joker'ish? Like have the detonator blow up YOUR boat? Or BOTH boats?
alfred worked for the burmese government?!!
seriously wtf.
( ok they were a democracy between 1948 and 1962, still...)
First off, Pencil Trick FTW. Not only did the movie live up to all the Hype, not only was it a riveting and thrilling movie; but the dialog was spectacular. Christan Bale acted Bruce Wayne as if he was Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Which made me laugh so many times. The Joker was perfect. He is a mass-murdering psychopathic terrorist who , "...wants to watch the world burn." (Alfred) He has several lines that make you really think. Like, "Why is it that nobody panics when everything goes to plan? Even if the plan is horrible?". Harvey Dent. I personally think he was the only weak spot in the movie. I don't think he did Two-Face justice. BUT! He had some really good parts. And another quote that still hits hard, "Ok so fine. Either you die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain." I believe that The Dark Knight is one of the best movies made in a very, very long time.
Shouldn't the voices in your head be able to answer that?
I'm not a human, but I play one on T.V.
And they seem to have thought so, also.
Which is why they had Alfred go on about Burma and the jewels and the bandit. Seeing as how we aren't going to waste back-story on Joker ... here's back-story on someone who isn't even appearing in the movie.
On the plus side, I really liked how Joker kept changing the story on how he got the scars. I just wish they had given him a few more BELIEVABLE stories about it.
True story.
Anyway, I agree and disagree with just about every competent post here.
I thought this movie was good, but not great. I felt Nolan was going for something epic, something beyond what any action film had done before, but he probably felt the constraints of the genre hemming him in.
I mean some great debates in the film about the role of the hero and the villain in society, but then the BatPod does an about-face against a building? Cheesy stunt.
True, some of the dialogue made me cringe as well.
Contrary to a prior poster, I thought this was the first believable portrayal of Harvey Dent's transformation in to Two-Face, and I've read them all. Having an actor of Eckhart's abilities in that role brought the drama to life in a way that none of the comic portrayal's ever have. And I've never really liked Aaron Eckhart that much.
Ledger was great, blah blah blah. Not Oscar-worthy by a damn sight, but this would certainly have been one of the defining roles of his career. Amazing.
I tried watching Tim Burton's original again recently, and all I can say is that it's near unwatchable anymore. Jack Nicholson owes more to Caesar Romero than any of the comics, and the art direction and cinematography seem amateurish by comparison. Sorry guys, Tim Burton's Batman, once cherished, is dead to me now.
I will say this to wrap things up (finally): I was thinking about the movie all afternoon, then had some weird-ass dreams last night, and I've been thinking about it all morning. Not just the performances or the plot but the concepts and themes explored. That's why I was moved to (finally) create a slashdot account when I saw this topic. Someone felt my need and answered it.
I'll probably go back and see it again soon, but in the meantime, I'll keep an eye out here on the discussion.
I freely admit I didn't see "Batman Begins" so some of the references didn't make sense to me. (No Stately Wayne Manor? No Batcave? Alfred having been some kind of commando?) But overall they weren't important enough to detract.
CB as Batman was .. meh. There just wasn't anything there to engage me. He was, both as Batman and Bruce Wayne, more background than anything. And since technically the movie is about him that's rather sad.
Heath Ledger was good, as he has been in pretty much anything he's done. I like him as an actor. But honestly the Joker wasn't that hard of a character to 'get into'. He was impulse-driven and had no real long-term plan.
I've read reviews how Joker said he didn't have a plan but then everything he wanted to do worked out just fine. Well, what about things he set up that didn't work out and were still waiting? Hopefully that was something they were going to explore in what is now the sequel that can never be.
Adding in Harvey Dent's transformation into Two Face was rushed and didn't do the actor or the character justice. They could have done better by setting him up as "The White Knight" and taking the character into his own movie in the next one. But obviously the sequel was going to be more Joker.
The editing gave me a headache. I can't stand movies where they just cut back and forth for no real reason. Heck, at least use Steadicam for Spaghetti's sake! Some of us do have an attention span, you know.
I'll conclude with saying that had Heath Ledger not died this movie still would have done well but not nearly as well as it did. The press so pumped up his performance that there was no way this movie wasn't going to the top of the box office. Let's see if it has legs, tho.
Why the hell does Patrick Bateman grunt like that? Can't Batman afford to purchase a voice modulator or something. Most annoying thing ever, and terribly distracting to me.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
Not me, but then again I don't watch movies actively wondering how I can draw parallels between plot elements or a character's lines and the real world. That's not my idea of entertainment.
No, slashdot's been around since 1997.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
When Bruce asked him if they ever captured the thief he said, yes. To this Bruce asks how, and the reply was a quip of, we burnt the forest down.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
You know the part where the sleezeball lawyer wants to reveal Batman's identity, and the Joker threatens to blow up a hospital if nobody kills him? Why didn't they just kill the lawyer?
Yeah. You go ahead and trust that maniac. The rest of us will be over here in Rational-Land where we don't give someone whatever they want when they say they're going to blow up a hospital.
I have a more general question. How did the Batman movies get the very high levels of popularity like it had for the 1989 movies or more recent Spider-Man movies?
The 2005 film was popular but not incredibly so.
My guesses are the following:
1) A lot of people caught the 2005 movie after it was in the theaters and were surprised by it.
2) Heath Ledger's death gave it a big spotlight, unfortunately.
3) really good reviews from the critics
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
You could try Pioneer Place Stadium 6. http://www.fandango.com/regalpioneerplacestadium6_aaqzi/theaterpage/
It is just a simple walk (4-5 blocks) to the nearest MAX station from OSCON, then one stop west (A Blue, Yellow or Red line will do).
Ah, that's right.
Morgan is great in that role.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
You call yourself geek and haven't built an IMAX-in-the-box for your apartment yet?
Shame on you!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
However, the people of Gotham City on the ferries--even the criminals--had just shown themselves to be brave and moral enough not to give in to the Joker even at the expected cost of their own lives.
While I enjoyed the movie, this left me not really buying the need for Batman to become a real outlaw at the end.
Cramming in as many villans a possibly without ever using them. This isnt a comment specifically about the Dark Knight (as ive not seen it yet), but im thinking more the general trend in comic book adaptaions these days, obviously venom in spidy3 immediatly jumps to mind. From what ive herd about TDK its good and the joker is awesome but two face and scarecrow are pretty one dimensional. If you have a story that deals with multiply heros/villans please let it be more than a marketing excersise. (personally id love to see Maximum Carnage get the movie treatment, Super hero battle royal FTW) Yes i know it will never happen to many split rights, even if that was sorted its just to long to turn into a watchable film without gutting it.
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
They could explain how he got those scars. . .
Anyone else notice that for some reason parents thought since this was based off a comic book they should bring their young children along? I know of at least 50 kids who had nightmares yesterday.
WARNING: Spoiler alert. Stop reading if you don't want to know stuff. I really enjoyed this film. The dialogue and acting was phenomanal. But the plotting was incredibally stupid. It gets an A++ for dialogue and acting, but an F for plot. It was in line with the campy tv shot villain plot. Luckily the dialogue and acting wereso good that it made one of the best movies despite the Plot. I will mention the two gigantic things I felt were so incredibally stupid, they had to be mentioned. 1. In real life, someone would have shot the Joker. I mean, really. At least show someone shoot him and have him survive by wearing a bullet proof vest. Are the cops freakin pansies? 2. It is just possible that, in a hurray, they MIGHT not fill the ferries to the limit with people, including the lower hold where the bombs are. They even might not even look in the hold of the civilians boat. But to stand there and say that a ferry being used to pick up a boat load of criminals would not be thoroughly checked, ESPECIALLY the hold, is just plain incredibally stupid. Note, I am willing to let the joker get away with placing his lovely bombs all over the hospital with no one noticing. I am willing to let no one notice whenever the Joker sneaks his agents in as 'officials'. But a boat being used to pick up criminals? No. Not even pansy cops would do that. Not even if the joker snuck his men on board. Too many people would check that hold WAY too many times.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
This is the end of the Batman movie franchise. You can't have Batman without the Joker, and you can't have a better Joker than Heath Ledger, and he's dead.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"'The Dark Knight' was a mess of loose ends."
Are you kidding? They killed almost anyone who could have been a loose end. What loose ends are you talking about?
I thought one of the most ridiculous parts of the movie was the bat sonar at the end. I can buy that they developed a special cell phone that can do that, but when Batman turned every cell phone in the city into bat sonar they lost me.
Chris Nolan does not know how to shoot a fight scene.
It was really telling the first movie. Here in TDK, there was a little improvement, but still not enough. Still a chaotic mess(disco fight, near-end sequence swat/hostage fight)
Shame shame. Really detracted from the experience. It wasn't terrible, it was just more of "Meh, it's okay", which is such a letdown given the budget and production value of the movie.
I mean c'mon: Kung Fu Panda had better fight choreography. Tsk tsk.
http://www.object404.com
Great Movie. Completely entertaining for a two and a half to three hour forray into the world of Gotham City. Batman's growl/deep/devil voice really was a sore point for me. I just don't ever remember bruce wayne's voice changing when he's Batman to Hellraiser's...Anyways Bruce Wayne was crafty/scientific/methodical about his missions. A true crime solver as well as crime fighter. I'd go as far as to say a stud Ninja MacGuyver. Not using yacht boats with russian dance girls, or flying into his parties with 3 women on his arm. I love CB as an actor (American Psycho, Harsh Times) it just seems they made Bruce Wayne a bad Tony Stark(Iron Man).
Should of given the role of joker to Mark Hamill. Best voice of the Joker hands down.
Yeah, I've never seen that name on here before. Maybe he's a troll.
For those of you who don't seem to realize just how many villains there are that they could chose from, here is a list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_villains (Hint: You're right. The next movie won't be catwoman, freeze, riddler, or penguin. Please stop posting about them. I bet you never would have guessed scarecrow either until you saw him the first time)
No movie is worth the $50+ it costs to go see a movie these days...
I watched the first 6 minutes of this film on my friends 52" HD television (it's a special feature on the BB blue-ray disk) and it was definitely higher resolution than the version I saw in theaters (you can see the individual pieces of glass when the mob-guy shoots out the window in the bank). I would love to see this film in IMAX, but I haven't been able to get a ticket.
So for all you people out there talking about how dark it was, and lordie it certainly was, (I haven't enjoyed a movie that much since young Alex went cavorting with his droogs, but I'm a twisted sort who's digressing) how about the fact that this movie and Indiana Jones had the same rating? Seriously, how completely misleading and worthless is a system that ranks those two levels of intensity as comparable?
You need more psychedelic art in your life. rhesusmonkey.deviantart.com
Hang on a second there with that IMAX comment. I honestly think that people want to like IMAX so much that they don't objectively evaluate it. IMAX is great for nature movies. It's downright awful for regular feature films. The screen is simply too big and it is so uncomfortable to watch. One can hardly tell what is going on during action sequences because it's too hard to get the whole screen in one's field of vision. Regular stadium seating theaters are probably the best format for a feature film. It's what the film was meant to be shown on. It's a bad idea to shoehorn one technology into another because they don't play as well as one might imagine at first.
Well?
Sky hook!
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
This is hardly the first movie that has terrorism in it. The movie is more of a discussion of these issues than a case for any particular viewpoint. I thought the Joker made a pretty good case for anarchy. Do you remember the part where the talked about the "Plan"?
Perhaps he might read it if the subject was more obvious. Lloyd Center is 2 stops EAST on the MAX. Only about 9 (short) blocks from the Oregon Convention Center. It's a nice 2-story mall, with a decent food court and an ice skating rink. I've not been to the theater.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Does anybody but me feel that The Joker had done a similar thing with the ferries as he did with rachel and dent and their locations? He knew that batman would go for rachel, so he swapped the locations, I'm betting that in some interview down the line it will come out that the detonators on each of the ferries would have blown up their OWN ship, as part of jokers proving that the city was beyond saving, and to prove to people how morally depraved they are and give them what they deserve. Anybody else see what im saying/agree?
Am I the only one who picked up on an underlying terrorist theme? When Alfred was outlining the Joker and how he worked, he pointed out that money isn't important to all people and some people just want to destroy the lives of others.
Now seeing the Joker burn all of that cash just for the fun of it, it makes me think of the ultra wealthy in the middle East funding terrorism. It has nothing to do with money, but wanting to destroy the lives of others.
You don't strap a bomb on your chest because you want 20 grand. You do it to DESTROY others. The Joker was a terrorist, he used fear to rule the city quite effectively.
Hamas has been doing this for years.
A capable movie does not need an 8 story tall movie screen to show us how large its penis is. A great movie is better on imax, but still good as a grainey cam in the lower right hand of your laptop screen while you do an instance raid.
For years, I tried to explain to people that the novels, Return, that made these new movies possible was what should be put on film. Jack Palance should not have been a villian; he should have played Batman. Of course, doing so in a successful movie would require that the public know the background of the character, something Miller's book could assume but that would be quite erroneous in the real world.
After seeing TDK at a 6:15AM IMAX screening yesterday, I'm again pondering the same sort of thing. This time, though, with the background of BB and TDK in the public consciousness, I can fantasize that it might be do-able.
TDK jumped ahead a year. For the next movie, jump ahead a quarter-century. Bring the Batguy out of the shadows one last time and get him killed while, amidst the absolutely destroyed background of a failed Gotham, we find our hearts touched by the notion of children rising up, growing up to build a better world from the debris their foolish, selfish elders left to them. I would pay money to see that. I'd buy the boxed trilogy. And if they were done right, I'd say that the Batman movies were then, at least until sometime after I've shuffled off this mortal coil, done.
So where are we going to find a Jack Palance these days?
I mostly agree. I'd say it was very good but not excellent. As for Ledger, he gave a great performance but hardly one matching all the fawning and hype. If he'd not died there would be no Oscar rumors and far less focus on his performance. Don't get me wrong; he did a great job but it was hardly a 'stunning, stellar' performance as most critics are saying. People would not be heaping on the praise like they are had Ledger not died.
An interesting idea but its a house of cards (yuck yuck)
Thats a pretty twisted view on the Batman Begins. The IPO was initiated by Earle and Wayne was told he could not stop it. Earle's comments to the young Wayne about taking care of the company until he was old enough combined with his reference to Alfred of a large number of shares being given to the butler upon Wayne being declared dead suggest that Wayne retained majority control of the company all along and that his machinations merely prevented Earle from taking control away.
The actual scene involves a threat to blackmail the corporation (a felony), not to be a whistle blower. Wayne's use of corporate funds is questionable, but not on its face illegal... especially in a R&D department. Its entirely possible and even likely that the Batman related research could yield gains in other fields (and it is suggested at the start of tDK that this is the case).
And of course, a "better class of criminal" the Joker refers to would not be one that stole money, but just the opposite.
I would have to agree with this.
It really is the best villain I've seen.
And that in particular.
Unfortunately I've already posted to this thread and can't mod your post up further.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
When the seemingly invulnerable to low-yield nuclear weapons monster kept coming back back back coming back coming back.
A villain with a past provides depth to the character. Otherwise, you end up with a two-dimensional caricature.
And that was what this movie skirted dangerously close to. The omniscient villain who exists only to give the hero someone to defeat.
Which was fine for the Halloween series. The Friday the 13th series. The Nightmare on Elm Street series. Etc.
And writing them takes no skill.
Assuming you meant Caine....
They had to show it on IMAX so it would have at least 1 redeeming quality.
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight sucked ass. By far the shittiest and most dull Batman films ever. Even that shit with George Clooney was better.
I know I'm not on topic, but mentioning how one dimensional the villains were reminded me that Billy Dee Williams was Harvey Dent in the first Batman movie (the Tim Burton one) and was so horribly mangled that he became one half Tommy Lee Jones and one half that purple thing.
What could have been... Billy Dee Williams as Two Face. He'll always be the best in my heart!
And for all the talk about being "not a schemer," the setup with the bomb-in-stomach in the police office, as well as the two ferries, obviously took a fair bit of forethought and planning.
The point is that if you give in to a terrorist, your life gets harder, not easier.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I just don't get the RAVING reviews. I thought the movie was great...but no better or no worse than Iron Man or Batman Begins....To be honest and this is going to sound nutty...I was just plain out DISTRACTED by Ledgers make-up...I don't know what it was about it...it just distracted me when he was on screen. Just didn't seem right....I am going to have to go see it again I guess....the Joker I was expecting was the Joker from the new Batman WB cartoon...stark raving mad but still humerous...just in a sick twisted way. I just don't think there was a lot of that...the pencil trick WAS funny though...
Ummm ... what exactly is this right thing that Bush is doing? Taking away Constitutional Rights? Power grabs? Invading countries that insulted his father? Not seeing your Bush hero worshiping in the same light as this movie. In the movie, even the FISA sonar cell phone equipment was destroyed. I took that as them saying that even though they wanted to do good with it, they knew it would only corrupt them. Bush gets no same parallel, he is no hero and should be held accountable for his actual crimes.
Did you see it in IMAX?
Its not like every other DMR movie... a bunch of the movie is shot, and presented in full frame 15-perf IMAX.
There's a whole aspect of the experience you'd miss not having that jolting sensation when the movie goes from widescreen to "zomg, I'm flying through gotham" fullscreen.
Its used extremely effectively IMO.
Disclaimer: I haven't seen the movie yet, but I suspect I will find it quite entertaining as my requirements for action blockbusters are not that high.
What I find interesting is the mass hysteria following this movie. This mix of massive direct and guerrilla marketing, dead lead, and actual excitement of fans have driving the hype meter into the red zone.
How much do you think the crowd effect modifies people's opinions? If all the critics came out panning this movie, what would the average punter be saying about it?
Some supporting evidence that something is awry is here: IMDB's user comments. If you go to the last 10 pages of comments or so, you'll see hundreds of reviewers that universally loathed the movie, then a gradual rise in ratings until virtually every reviewer gives the movie a 10.
Any explanation for this?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Slate's review touches upon this a bit, as well as pointing out some other parallel's to the state of the US.
No.
Morgan Freeman recounted the tale of the jewelry thief who stole them only to throw them away.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Since I'm sure most people will cover the *good* parts of the movie, I'll touch on the *bad* ones exclusively since it's not that interesting to just nod in agreement on stuff like Heath Ledger's fantastic Joker.
(BTW holy spoiler alert, Batman!)
1) Implausible SuperBatman action.
Ok we know Batman is pretty badass and is expected to be able to do things that 99.99999% of people could never even hope to do. But the whole airplane hook business? And jumping out of Wayne's penthouse to catch Rachel and, without really slowing down the fall, land on top of a car? It just looked silly.
2) Forgetting to finish filming certain scenes.
So, after Batman and Rachel crashed onto a car roof from a 30+ story building without suffering so much as a concussion, did Joker and his goons just leave the rest of the guests at the fundraiser some parting words and split? Weren't they after Harvey Dent, who Wayne simply locked up/barricaded in a random room? Maybe Alfred unleashed his ninja skills on them and sent them all running. I don't know, but that's not the kind of scene you want to just forget about without resolving it.
3) Lucius Fox giving away Batman's identity.
The accountant says "hey Wayne Enterprises is spending an AWFUL lot of money on R&D, and there's these Batmobile schematics I found also...." Lucius is like "OMG YOU NOW KNOW THAT BRUCE WAYNE IS BATMAN!" Holy jumping to conclusions, Batman! Couldn't he say something like "Wayne Enterprises has a lot of clients, and they may or may not include someone associated with Bruce Way.. err.. I mean, Batman. Whoops! You didn't hear that! I'm an idiot."
3) Rachel Dawes... why, again?
Diffrent actress. Different personality. Different kind of role. So, why the same character? It does more to kill continuity than to preserve it, honestly. Besides that, I'll echo what some people have said about Maggie Gyllenhaal not being nearly attractive enough to warrant the Joker calling her beautiful in the scene where he crashes the fundraiser. When he said it I was like "whoa, looks like *someone* forgot Katie Holmes was replaced!"
4) Nolan can't film fight scenes to save his life.
I could crap better camera placement than what Nolan and his crew came up with. Yes, it's better than the complete mess we were treated to in Batman Begins, where you literally couldn't see a single move Batman did while fighting thugs. But it's still pretty abysmal. I mean, of all comic book characters, Batman is supposed to have the most impressive combat sequences. Not the *least* impressive, like what Nolan managed. Freaking hire Jackie Chan or something, someone who knows where the camera needs to be to capture the choreography. With a $180,000,000 budget on a Batman movie, there's no excuse for the rubbish fight scenes they managed.
5) The ending makes no sense
Batman wants to show that Joker didn't corrupt Harvey Dent. So instead he opts to show that Joker corrupted Batman??? The public sees Batman as a force of good as well. He's not demonized by the public in this movie. So why would Batman want to be demonized? Isn't that the opposite of what he's fighting for? (Yes, it is the opposite.) The whole "Batman's not a hero, so he can be whatever the city needs him to be" line might sound cool on the surface, but honestly the LAST thing the city needs him to be is a serial killer that the cops are all after, and that's what he is at the end of TDK. So effectively, this is how the movie ends: Harvey Dent is dead (I think; he certainly looked dead), Joker has managed to turn Batman from a force of good in the eyes of the public to a murderer, the police are busy chasing Batman instead of doing useful stuff like fight crime, Batman is running from the police instead of doing useful stuff like fight crime, and there's a douchebag out there who knows Batman's identity because Lucius is a senile fool. Fantastic. Maybe the douchebag will be nice to Batman since Bruce Wayne saved his life by crashing his Murcielago into the pickup that was going to ram th
I like basketball!!1!
In the words of Darth Vader, "NOooooooooooooooo!!!"
seriously, what you describe is almost exactly what Palpatine does with Anakin.
-- Sig under construction...
Darkest yet in the Batman series.
By the end, it actually reminded me of Seven.
I kept waiting to see Rachel's head in a box.
But you're right about the continuity. It'll unfortunately have to happen again with Heath Ledger.
Can this really happen>
It is certainly a character that can be physically replaced since you could barely tell it was Heath Ledger, but after that stirring performance and the tragic death, who would _want_ to try to be the next Joker? They would have to have balls of steel (no, that's a different superhero) to set themselves up to comparison to Heath's Joker.
You have three choices...
Lloyd Mall 8, Lloyd Center 10, or Pioneer Place Stadium 6.
To get to the Lloyd Center theatres, take Max toward Gresham to the Lloyd Center stop. (It is two stops from the Convention Center.) Cross the park. One theatre will be off to your right and the other will be inside the mall on the third floor in the center. (Look for the ice rink.)
The Pioneer Place theatre is newer and as nice as Regal offers. (All three are owned by Regal. They are pretty bad. Expect to sit through 20 minutes of commercials before the show.)
To get to Pioneer Place Stadium, take the Max train downtown to the 4th St stop. Go in the Mall in front of the stop. Go to the third floor, cross the sky bridge between the game store and the Starbucks. The theatre is one floor up.
Not certain how much time you will have. OSCON gets pretty busy. I need to head to it as soon as I am done ingesting caffeine.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
I am the Bat! ...
The night is mine.
The thing is set in Chicago, and obviously so. Great views of the Navy Pier, the Marina Towers, the Chicago Board of Trade building, and the river bridges. Seemed weird, but it worked.
The L.A. Times is now suggesting Batman move to LA.
I get the impression the director preferred to show much more gore, but was edited back due to the need to make sales with the PG-13 rating.
As a rated R movie this movie coudl have as much fear factor as teh original psyco
Actually, if I remember it right, Lucius totally effed up. The accountant only said that he knew that Wayne Enterprises had created the Batmobile; he hadn't necessarily concluded that Wayne was Batman! Obviously the script doesn't realize this. Or maybe I heard it wrong.
=====
I think you're forgetting that he is blackmailing WAYNE enterprises. It could be that he is referring to balckmailing bruce wayne, as he is wayne enterprises for the most part, not blackmailing batman directly. Batman is just associated with wayne via the car, but may take exception to having his sources compromised.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
According to what I've read and seen, the bike was a total bitch. Yes, the design actually worked. Sort of. And they had to have that design so that it could look like it ejected from the Batmobile/Tumbler.
Apparently, though, the design was so unstable that none of the stunt riders could stay upright on the thing for more than a few seconds at a time. The takes you see in the final film are some of the longer successes at riding the bike and they had to be done slowly or not at all.
Anybody got any good links that discuss this? I'm actually pretty fascinated by that bike.
The biggest problem I saw--aside from a rambling plot line that killed franchise characters at random--is that it lacked the Batman setting. For instance, the "General Hospital" was a mediocre low-rise in some office park, not a towering black monolith drenched in the glory and decadence of a thickly urban environment. Similarly, whoever conceived of Wayne Tower as your run-of-the-mill dainty standalone bank skyscraper did not see the last movie. And when do we come closest to the Gotham ambiance? When our hero visits Hong Kong.
Other location elements--such as the bat cave and Wayne manor--were also missing. Perhaps they had some misguided idea that Batman needed to be pulled into our exact time and place (like Spiderman) instead of the shadowy parallel universe he has traditionally inhabited, because they seemed content to inject a lot of cultural and political references as well (including the new emphasis on endorsing vigilantism).
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I dont know if anyone else felt this way.
While ledger did brilliantly, i was watching it thinking that this is exactly how I wanted the joker to be played, after seeing it done this way in Batman: Dead End brilliantly by Andrew Koenig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjp0I_okX0w
If you're a batman fan, or an aliens fan, you've probably already seen this. He did great though.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I suppose no one alive is old enough to remember first-hand, but I hold out some hope that, someday, someone will do a Batman movie that embraces the original notion of vigilante instead of the more modern notion of super-detective. Back when he was new and carried sidearms, he never hesitated to use them. He and Robin tossed many a crook off tall buildings. Why couldn't that character be brought back? Because Frank Miller didn't do it first?
I don't buy it. A modern-day vigilante should kill people. That just seems so obvious to me.
I am not sure if anyone has posted a Theater location near OSCON... There are about 500+ posts and I do not want to read through all of them.
Head east on the Max train (PDX Light Rail) about 3 stops to the Lloyd Center transit center (a free ride from the Oregon Convention Center). There is a large theater across the street and parking lot. Additionally, in the Lloyd Center mall, there is an 8 screen theater too. So, there are a couple options really close to the Convention Center and OSCON.
its just a movie. ... :-)
Why so serious?
Yea, RED!
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class, especially since I rule.
(okay, I'm lying...)
> Fact #1 Bats=bugs!
Just add a Batman logo with fangs and put it in a plastic report cover and your report is SURE to get an A!
He plays a really good psycho.
Having played Batman before would add an interesting feel to the fourth wall...
I saw the new Batman in what I'm pretty sure is a "true" IMAX theater in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I saw 300 in what is I heard is not a "true" IMAX screen in King of Prussia. I just think that the screen is too big and there is too much to look at. Keep in mind that I saw both in regular theaters as well, so I have an excellent frame of reference. I'm not alone, I have heard a lot of complaints about various movies. When people left the theater, all I heard was people talking about the projection method of the movie, not the movie itself!
Here are a few examples:
- Scenes were you had two people on either side of the screen. You literally have to rotate your head about 150 degrees.
- Action sequences a hard to understand because all you see is a foot or fist flying. It's hard to get a comprehensive view of the action.
- Headshot cuts are just massive.
- One is too concerned with getting comfortable and it ruins the suspension of disbelief.
Needless to say, I think that some sort of repeat customer metric would be interesting to evaluate.
I'm thinking of getting a group together to see it at Lloyd Center at 9:20pm tonight. That should be late enough not to conflict with Mark Shuttleworth's talk.
Note that there are two cinemas at Lloyd Center; this is the one inside the mall itself, not the one across the street. It's a free MAX ride from the convention center. Reply here if interested.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
>lol, yeah can't argue with that. In all seriousness though, these loose ends:
>Character development(excepting Dent), character motivation(also excepting Dent),
Hmm... let's see, Bruce Wayne goes from thinking about retiring and getting back to normal life to thinking there's no one else that can do his job. He also moves from the "Batman has no limits" mindset to accepting that in the end (with the eavesdropping) that even he can't hold all of the power. Rachel goes from still loving Bruce to realizing it's time to move on. Gordon goes from arrow-straight lawman to agreeing to let Batman torture the Joker and to pinning the blame at the end on Batman for expedience. Fox realizes that there are some places he can't go for his boss, and puts his foot down.
>setting, plot, storyline,
I thought Gotham as a house of mirrors was well-done. Glass, reflections, and various degrees of transparency everywhere. Maybe it's not the cartoony Joel Schumacher city you were wanting, I dunno. If you couldn't follow the mostly straightforward plot, maybe you should go back to watching simple Event A -> Event B -> Protagonist gets the girl movies.
>cohesion with any identifiable over-arching theme besides pornographic anarchy.
Yes, the themes of civilization being an illusion, moral relativism vs absolutes, the ends justifying the means, the basic nature of man, and the protection of civil liberties in times of crisis had absolutely no place in this movie.
I'm really scratching my head, wondering how you watched The Dark Knight and came out of it thinking it was a "mishmash of compromise". Because just about everyone else who watched it came out of the theater with the opposite conclusion.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Yeah but its fairly common sense. If your house is haunted by some evil spirits, just burn the fucker down, problem solved.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
No, hell that'd be awful. Franklin Institute is an OmniMAX theater, I'm pretty sure. Dome-shaped right?
If so I'm shocked the studio allowed the movie to be shown on there.
Domed screens are awful to watch any IMAX movie on -- they're only good for OmniMAX movies that were intended to be viewed with the screen wrapped around the viewer.
The people on the ferries would have blown each other up within two minutes tops. Either a rabid inmate would have gouged his way through to get to the detonator or there would have been an equally deranged civilian who would have done the same. I don't believe in humanity enough to dismiss one of the core evolutionary traits of any living organism: self preservation.
Well, that would probably be the reason why Batman was particularly bad to watch there! I agree that OmniMAX is great for nature films and it's totally unsuitable for a regular movie. Someone needs to tell them that. One of my coworkers said that he went to see Superman at the same theater, but walked out 10 minutes into the movie and demanded his money back. I wish I had known to do that because I had actually considered walking out. I would have done the same for sure!
Have you ever seen a 70mm print of Lawrence of Arabia? Its an entirely different experience from watching it at home. You get a whole different view of the movie, the way it was intended to be seen.
Suggesting otherwise is like suggesting that looking at the Sistine Chapel on a webpage is no different than seeing it in person. Its just ridiculous. You see the image, but not the detail.
A bunch of people have responded and said that it was Michael Caine's character who told the jewel thief story.
I distinctly remember Morgan Freeman telling it.
Am I wrong?
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Why so serious?
So, being behind white collar crimes when you are a superhero at night is fine, but you don't enjoy others doing the same? Interesting take, this Batman movie thingy.
Did you miss the whole subplot about Wayne hiring a forensic accountant to make sure all of his trust fund holdings were 100% legit? And his cancelling the business deal because he found the Chinese company was making its growth numbers illegally?
You saw the movie, right?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
What's with the imdb rating? Why is it #1? Seriously, I guess it's good but don't you think some Heath Ledger fans have gone a little overboard here?
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Boy, the way the Bee Gees played
Movies John Travolta made
Guessing how much Elvis weighed
Those were the days
And you knew where you were then
Watching shows like Gentle Ben
Mister, we could use a man like Sheriff Lobo again
"Disco Duck" and Fleetwood Mac
Coming out of my eight-track
Michael Jackson still was black
Those were the days
Bart was feeling mighty blue
It's a shame what school can do
For no reason, here's Apu
Those were the days
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Ya, it was Alfred, I think he was talking about his British Army unit. It definitely took place in the temporary bat cave (with the square light panels and concrete floor and rising equipment bays).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
This film is a perfect, grim closing chapter for the Nolan Batman. I honestly don't think they should do a third film. Here's why:
(I shouldn't have to say SPOILERS at this point, but you've been warned)
1) The Joker and Harvey Dent were played to perfection. It would be a mistake to re-cast Heath Ledger, and the character Harvey is dead. So the two most important Batman villains are off the table for a third film.
2) No, they can't bring Harvey back to life. Not if they want to maintain the "real" tone they've established.
3) In the first film Bruce spoke of the importance of the "symbol". A man can be killed, but a symbol endures. It is incorruptable. Not after this film. Bruce has allowed the symbol of Batman to be destroyed for the sake of Harvey. Batman is now a cop killer. And it's only a matter of time before Harvey the symbol fails. Those symbols will never be the same to the people of Gotham.
4) Batman killed Harvey Dent. He crossed his most important line. Perhaps in a very defensable way, saving Gordon's son, but it was a line Bruce swore he would never cross. Two-face made Bruce do what even the Joker couldn't.
5) Every "good" guy compromised and betrayed what they valued most to fight the Joker. Gordon let his own family believe he was dead. Lucious Fox became the very big brother be warned Bruce against. Harvey couldn't bring in the mob as an attorney, so as Two-Face he took out their leaders with a gun. Alfred talked Bruce through the moral barrier that had kept him from lowering to Joker's level. And Bruce has destroyed the whole point of Batman. And it was all done with the best of intentions, yet in the end they all did they very thing they hated the most.
6) Bruce had hoped to step down as Batman, but with Harvey's death he never can. Batman will now be without allies of any sort. Fox is gone. Harvey is gone. Rachell is gone. Gordon cannot let on the truth or help Bruce. No new batmobiles or armor. In the Nolan universe, Batman has relied heavily on these resources, and they are all gone.
7) You cannot follow this with a "lighter, happier" movie.
8) Batman doesn't have a villian who can raise the steaks from what Joker did.
9) Gotham PD believe he is a cop killer. Bruce cannot be as effective now that he must do everything covertly. For all of Bruce's remaining days as Batman he will be hunted.
10) Nolan's Batman doesn't need a happy ending. It needs a truthful ending, as this film has given it.
This thread is already so full of words, but I thought I should mention that I saw it on IMAX on Saturday and it was magnificent. A really great film any way you look at it. Hell, if I lived in Chicago, I'd be afraid to go outside for a few days after seeing it, because it was presented in the most realistic manner I have ever seen in a superhero film. I've even seen less realistic heist films!
The Terminator Salvation got cheers as big as anything in the movie where I saw it.
"I want to show you a magic trick...."
Call me a hater, but I thought that the Dark Knight was amongst the most disappointing movies of the year. Here are my reasons (I know I'll get lynched for this):
1) Heath Ledger is NOT ALL THAT GOOD! If you disallow the cloud of his untimely demise to hover over your judgment, I think you can see how he has done every scene in the same way. If you've seen the trailer, there's not much more of his acting to see
2) EVERYBODY and I mean EVERYBODY knows the identity of Batman. That sucks majorly.
3) Too many James Bond ripoffs. The whole using an airplane with a forked structure to pull away a balloon with two human attached to it was done in Thunderball. James Bond receiving his gadgets and then doing silly stuff with it and followed by a snappy remark from Q was done in, well, almost all the 007 movies.
4) The batmobile and batcycle were horrible. Given today's technology, I would have liked to see something that didn't look so unrefined and go kart like. Neither looked stable and neither looked like they were the product of a lot of spending. The Batmobile looked like it was designed for Statham in that prisoner racing movie rather than for crime fighting.
5) Maggie Gyllenhall is UGLY! I threw up a little when Bale kissed her.
6) Bale is kinda dull as Wayne in this movie and he speaks like Shelley Marsh when he's Batman.
On the positive side, Eckhart acted really well. I like Gary Oldman and was a little disappointed that his role didn't give him much to work with. Morgan Freeman's character was fun in a cheesy kind of way.
All in all, I wouldn't say it's not worth going to, but at the same time, you almost have to go since it is the biggest movie of the year.
Here's hoping I do not get modded down for not heaping praise on Heath Ledger due to his death. I am sure he'd appreciate my candor.RIP.
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
The end of the movie and the demise of the Heath Ledger left me wondering about who would be in the next movie as villians. IIRC, Nolan is signed on for 3, so it'll be interesting to see what comic book foe he brings out of the woodwork to do battle with Bale. Any thoughts?
Two-Face is next ... it was a Joker movie that set up the character of Two-Face.
Except for the part about him being dead and buried? I don't think he got any resurrection skills in that fire.
Did we see the same movie?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Batman is the worst superhero ever, the batman comics sucked, the batman movies suck even more. And gotham city sucks. It's all polluted and shitty, who would want to live there? Batman is a fraud, what would he do without his batbelt? ANYONE could be batman, given 10 or so years of martial arts training, etc.
No no, HANCOCK was the movie that makes parallels to bush. The forgetful drunk who can change the face of the moon if he was so inclined.
it just goes to prove that IMDB is a popularity contest, not actually about 'good movies'.
The moment you accept killing one innocent person is OK to save many more innocent people, then how do you propose we weigh their lives?
... do you watch the steven colbert show? (lol) ...
The funny part? It is true..
wtf is this? Havn't we met before? ... oh wait. YES. Why don't you discuss the article (or at least something slightly relevant?)
Oh wait. Maybe its the 'rootkit' on your computer, allowing 'hackers' to 'ruin' your live journal and 'accidentally' post it on slashdot.
Heath Ledger's role of the Joker is the best villain since Hannibal Lecter. They were very similar. Both were brilliant and insane at the same time, but the Joker was definitely more outwardly psychotic while Lecter was more subdued and in my opinion slightly scarier because of this.
There's a big difference between Bush being unpopular for his actions and Batman being unpopular for his actions. Even though Batman is criticized for taking matters into his own hands, at the end of the day there are criminals behind bars. When all is said and done, Batman gets results.
Bush, however, is criticized for taking matters into his own hands, and getting no results. When all is said and done, nothing is better.
Yes, I absolutely did, and I wondered if anyone else did too.
Unfortunately, too many people seem to be blinded by a curious form of hate to allow anything good to be connected with Bush. When people can't consider the possibility that someone who disagrees with them might be doing the best he can to do what he thinks is right, you begin to wonder about those people and what they're projecting.
I wish Bill Watterson hadn't stopped writing. What joy he brought.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I metamoderate daily, troll, I know what's on topic and what isn't. This comment isn't, and neither is yours, although my original comment IS. I'm modding myself down with the "no karma bonus" box and if the mods want to mod it down even further I have no complaint about it. I'll let the mods take care of your offtopic flamebait. Keep it up and your comments will never see the light of day.
Just to let you know, I'm done biting. Bye bye.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I completely disagree with you. I felt that Gotham and its violence was an important part to the story. The constant shyness the movie showed, (cutting away just before acts of violence like the joker cutting someone's face, showing no real consequences to getting shot except a quick shudder and a fall, utterly ignoring the horror of a man burning on top of a pile of money, explosions never harming anyone except where the plot made it unavoidable) made it all seem comic, hollow and flaccid.
The violence was fantasy violence. The city was meant to feel corrupt and chaotic - something Batman, Dent and Gordon were struggling against. Something the Joker was exploiting.
A little artistic integrity instead of self-censorship in the name of a family-friendly blockbuster would have really benefited the movie.
Yes, without question. Ledger's Joker actually acts legitimately crazy, complete with the tongue thing. You can tell that he is rational in his own mind, and not trying to be funny, as Nickilson's Joker tried to be.
You really have to see it to understand what I mean. It really is the best villain I've seen.
You have to bear in mind the very different sensibilities of the two films, though...
I have not seen the new film and intend to give it a chance - I did like "Begins" - but I feel like they may have reached the point where they've begun to take the character too seriously... I don't think "The Joker" is really a character that works well cast in a light like that - the character is supposed to be over-the-top, the whole concept of him is basically ridiculous, but that's the whole point. But now I guess he's John Wayne Gacy crossed with Hannibal Lecter? I'm not yet convinced that The Joker benefits from this treatment - or that a real portrayal of a psychotic benefits from being fitted into the Joker mould...
What I appreciate about Nicholson's Joker (or Tim Burton's Joker, depending on your perspective) was the whole "artist" angle. It's not just the face that made him "The Joker" - he decided for himself to create the ridiculous persona, as a kind of murderous performance art.
'Course, Mark Hamill was really the best Joker. :D
Bow-ties are cool.
Oh noes, I've no mod points!
I'd have modded you informative!
Not to worry, I have some mod points, I'll mod him up on your behalf, as soon as I'm done posting this response!
What? Oh, shit...
Bow-ties are cool.
I believe in Harvey Dent
The fake cop interrogated by Dent was not actually the Scarecrow, although this has confused many people. The actor playing the schizophrenic is named David Dastmalchian.
your links don't work. neither does your logic.
Yes, but Caine is the one who told that story
Anybody else think of Bush when they caught it?
What makes you think anyone think of Bush in the context of "doing the right thing"?
hmmm. I'm not sure you read the FAQ about metamoderation.
2. Joker's henchmen/goons.
This movie deserves to be titled as horror as well. I saw TDK opening night, and i have to say Heath Ledger's performance really did get to me. I left the theater with a 'freaked' out feeling I've never gotten from any horror movie. Heath Ledger really was the end all to be all Joker.
Either the guy did or didn't know Bruce is Batman.
If he does know, then it works perfectly.
And if he doesn't know, then Lucius needs to tell him so he doesn't try blackmail. If he thinks Batman is someone else, then there's no reason not to blackmail Wayne enterprises.
paintball
...it always bothers me when characters that have been portrayed as smart suddenly become especially stupid for the sake of plot.
The Joker has threatened all means of transport other than ferries - that must mean the ferries are safe!
paintball
Somewhere on slashdot someone posted ridiculous spoilers that were NOT true, but came close enough to the plot to be absurdly funny only to someone who watched the movie. Can someone please please link me?
Saw it last night. It should have wrapped up 20 minutes earlier. Also, does anyone else find it strange that the thug who pulled a gun on the District Attorney while on the stand was later picked up by Gordon and cops at the bar? So you try to murder the district attorney in the courtroom and you just get out on bail? WTF?
I find that after 12 car chase scenes, chase scenes are boring. Explosions are boring after the 60th one. Maybe I'm not the target market for these films, but I liked Iron Man better -- and I hate Tony Stark in the comics, billionaire industrialist dickhead that he is.
When people can't consider the possibility that someone who disagrees with them might be doing the best he can to do what he thinks is right, you begin to wonder about those people and what they're projecting.
I agree with this as a reason to avoid saying "Bush is a c**k" etc; however, hypothetically, should a person who is doing something "wrong" - even if they think they are doing something "right" - be running the country and have that much power? Sure, they are doing it for the benefit of the nation (they think), but they are ruining many good things about it. I can't think of one good thing the Bush administration has done, and I can think of many bad things (disclaimer: I do not live in America, nor am I a US citizen). So: they may have had the best of intentions, but in my opinion they should definitely *not* be running one of the most powerful countries in the world.
Alas, they were voted in.
Here.
Sure I loved the movie and the acting, but #1 on IMDb? Sounds suspicious to me.
Or I could be wrong and the people do like the movie very much. I guess its the "Top 250" movies and not the "Best 250" movies, but I'm not convinced.
Batman nearly lost me on that little stunt. What a complete violation of our trust and the constitution!
a batman movie is discussed more than any other front page story on /.
Next hot story...the tech of Willy Wonka's factory?
I feel like the rest of the cast is overlooked. The Joker certainly stole the show, but Aaron Eckhart was great as Dent. Gary Oldman especially seems to be ignored and I think, excluding Ledger, he gave the best performance in the film. He did a great job of making Gordon seem like a real person that you could run into in any police station in America.
I was once a horse.
I enjoyed this comic from 2-D Glasses:
http://2dglasses.com/comics/2008/07/18/kill_the_batman/
I'm willing to bed money that the next villain will most likely be Black Mask, as I hear Nolan had already shown interest in having him in Dark Knight.
kind Alfred
Is it just me, or was Alfred's story about hunting down that guy in Cambodia (actually I forget the country) pretty much awesome? I know Alfred isn't exactly supposed to be the center of the story, but Michael Caine is an awesome actor and I would have liked him to have a little more screen time.
Preferably including gag-reel.
In the penthouse scene where Joker has Rachel, I would have loved to see him lick her on her cheek and sing "Don't you wish your boyfriend was a freak like me".
But then again, that'd probably be more of a Jack-Joker thing than a Heath-Joker thing
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
My wife and I went last night to see it. We live in Charlotte and wanted to see it on the really big screen. Big mistake! This theater is meant for laser shows. With film, everything bends! Maybe there are good IMAX theaters to see big movies, but this isn't one of them, unfortunately.
I test all links, troll. Anybody that clicks one will see you're a liar. Now shoo.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
But he's not human at all. He's just chaos with great planning skills. Without humanity, it's just inanity!
That's why Nicholson's Joker is more interesting to me. He was human in his insanity until he suffered a horrible fate, which twisted him immensely. I then understood his motivation. This whole "You can't understand the Joker" rationale is a cop out.
EXACTLY!!!
And that is the problem I have with that character. He knows TOO much and his plans work TOO perfectly.
He has limited resources (and many of those resources are hostile to him) yet he always has the exact manpower needed at the exact point it is needed with the exact equipment needed.
How many of his plans would have completely failed if just ONE person acted intelligently or even selflessly? Or, at the bare minimum, with basic suspicion about KNOWN criminals?
No. It was the 70's slasher flix all over again. No matter how slow the monster moves when chasing the victim, when the victim turns a corner, the monster will be right in front of her.
(This is a response to all of the siblings here...)
Here and here. Read it. Questions answered without people spouting their own biased opinions without checking the facts.
Simply put: Yes, Gotham could be considered to be modelled after Chicago, but it is not meant to specifically be that city or any other real city. (which is a good reason to deliberately leave out well known landmarks in the editing of the movie) :)
I haven't really read Batman comics since the mid-90s, but I definitely recall laughing at several issues where there would be an innocent bystander or two walking the streets of Gotham wearing a Bulls jersey, but those are mainly just the artists tipping their hat to the city they decide to get thier ideas from.
Karma: NaN
Having seen it twice through I enjoyed it almost as much as I did the first time. The movie was great and I hope they get started on the next one soon. I think Heath's acting was well done and I didn't even find Batman's voice irritating. The one problem I did have with the movie is the effort to keep it PG-13 by hiding almost all the blood. Take the scene from the cell with Batman and the Joker. Batman beats the snot out of the Joker and not a single bruise. That is not believable. When Batman smashes Joker's hand into the table, he didn't even wince. If someone was punching you in the face even without all that armor on his fist there would be some marks. That honestly, really annoys me. Unless batman's punches are really woosy or he has some serious soft padding on his fists there should have been some blood. I think back to the original where the Joker gets punched and spits out those fake teeth covered in blood. I would have liked to see a bit of realism there. There was almost no blood where I think there realistically should have been and that very much killed the immersion for me in scenes like that. Any1 else feel this way?
I loved the pencil trick too, but since I haven't seen it mentioned yet, this was my favorite scene:
Joker hanging upside-down.
Not only was it a powerful part of the story, where the whole "unstoppable force meets immovable object" idea gets underlined, the cinematography behind it was fantastic.
You've got the Joker and Batman face to face, except the Joker's seeing the world upside-down. But while he's on his rant, we see things from Joker's perspective, with him facing up (and his coat "falling up" making him look bizarre as ever).
And then he starts talking about gravity.
although my original comment IS.
which is why it has been knocked down to -1... clearly it was on topic, but the mods are clueless and are punishing your Shakespearean efforts. And yet ... my posts are un-modded.
Imagine that, you're still wrong, even after all that complaining.