The Dark Knight (GODDAMN SPOILERS)

Mr. T · Post by **Mr. T** » 2008-07-21 02:25pm

Anguirus wrote: Difficult question. I don't think Ledger's performance prevents other takes on Joker. I DO think, though, that any attempt to mimic his Joker will be seen as crass. This leads to the conclusion that the Joker should not be used in the next Nolanverse movie.

If the Joker is ever recast, it should be in a time-advanced story, sort of a "Dark Knight Returns" kind of thing. Then you could change the Joker's look and mannerisms enough to justify a recasting, without seeming tasteless.

I don't see anything tasteless about recasting the Joker. Granted Ledger's performance is going to be very difficult to measure up to, but there's been plenty of instances of recasting after a death (Dumbledore for example) without people getting up in arms about it. I like the idea of a time advanced story though, but I suppose there's no real necessity to bring back the Joker for the next movie. Maybe have the Joker sit out the next movie then bring in a new Joker for the 4th installment (if they're still doing these movies by then).

As for who the next villain may be, I heard on a news show a likely very unsubstanciated rumour that Phillip Seymour Hoffman may be tapped to play the Penguin.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-07-21 02:26pm

I think having the Joker behind glass at Arkham offering cryptic insights about another villain (bane or riddler) would be a good use of him for a few scenes.

And have him break out at the end.

The Wench · Post by **The Wench** » 2008-07-21 02:31pm

Galvatron wrote: That's right. It's a minor detail. And as you said yourself, Catwoman has two defining characteristics: her attraction to Batman and her costume.

That's absolutely untrue of Catwoman. She has much more to offer as a character besides having a crush on bats and her costume. She's as psychologically significant as Joker or Scarecrow. She's virtually the only character in the Batman universe that understands Bruce Wayne's split as a human being; his being the Bat and being Bruce are parallel to her being the Cat and being Selina. They both feel the need to be both, and understand this about each other on an unspoken level. Besides, the tension that comes from their relationship is quite interesting if written properly. They constantly trust and mistrust each other...with Talia, Bats never trusts her 'cause he always knows she's going to side with her father. And Talia is always Talia, never another person. Catwoman can be Catwoman or Selina, and that dual identity has more significance in any film. Selina understands Bruce in a way Talia never can, that's why merging them would prove difficult. You can't have Talia be Catwoman, because she's not a dual character. She's always Talia. She doesn't understand his being both, she just understands her love is split between two men: her father and Bruce. Her split love is hardly the work of a great plot. But dual identity play could be if it's done right.

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2008-07-21 02:57pm

I disagree.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-07-21 03:13pm

Galvatron wrote:I disagree.

Great non-argument there.

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2008-07-21 03:21pm

Why should I repeat everything I've already said?

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2008-07-21 05:06pm

Saw it, liked it. A very disturbing movie, though. Oddly, one of the most memorable moments for me was when Zeus tossed the detonator out the window.

As for a third installment, I actually think the Penguin would work pretty well in the Mob Boss incarnation. The criminal organization in Gotham is obviously in disarray. In a situation like that, a major enforcer from out-of-town might well move to Gotham to fill the vacuum and restore order, and Batman would be high on his target list. Such a boss might also hire an extremely effective hit man like Bane to do the dirty work. And you could work in Catwoman, too, as a love/interest distraction.

I wouldn't touch the Joker in a sequel to this one; I think we got our fill of his madness for a while.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2008-07-21 06:07pm

A belated point on usage, but one nevertheless somewhat topical:

Given an Arabic name like Rā's al-Ghūl, it does not mean his given name is Rā's and his family name al-Ghūl. It is a construction called an idāfa where two nouns (rā's, head, and ghūl, demon, ghoul) are combined to form a single grammatical unit (literally "the head of the demon"). Neither Rā's nor Ghūl is short for Rā's al-Ghūl (in fact, al-Ghūl must ipso facto refer to a completely different person from Rā's al-Ghūl). The name cannot be abbreviated without completely changing the meaning.

A daughter's name takes the form of a given name followed by a patronymic, meaning the daughter of Rā's al-Ghūl could only be named Talī`a bint Rā's al-Ghūl or Talī`a Rā's al-Ghūl, but never Talī`a al-Ghūl (which does not even inflect for gender). Furthermore, her bastard son Damian would neither inherit the family name Wayne nor the patronymic nasab Rā's al-Ghūl. His name would most likely be rendered as Damian Bruce, Damian ibn Bruce, or Damian ibn Abīhi ("son of his father"). Why he has a Greek ism instead of an Arabic one is anyone's guess.

Apologies for the digression, but this particular point is peculiarly troublesome.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-07-21 06:13pm

Its all true, but Ra's al-Ghul seems to have adopted western conventions using his name. Given he NAMED his daughter 'Talia al-Ghul', he must have good reasons.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2008-07-21 06:14pm

Galvatron wrote:Can't we just agree that I'm right?

No, because you're NOT.

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2008-07-21 06:16pm

Publius wrote:A daughter's name takes the form of a given name followed by a patronymic, meaning the daughter of Rā's al-Ghūl could only be named Talī`a bint Rā's al-Ghūl or Talī`a Rā's al-Ghūl, but never Talī`a al-Ghūl (which does not even inflect for gender).

No wonder she'd call herself Selina Kyle. That's a real mouthful!

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2008-07-21 06:22pm

Publius wrote:A belated point on usage, but one nevertheless somewhat topical:

Given an Arabic name like Rā's al-Ghūl, it does not mean his given name is Rā's and his family name al-Ghūl. It is a construction called an idāfa where two nouns (rā's, head, and ghūl, demon, ghoul) are combined to form a single grammatical unit (literally "the head of the demon"). Neither Rā's nor Ghūl is short for Rā's al-Ghūl (in fact, al-Ghūl must ipso facto refer to a completely different person from Rā's al-Ghūl). The name cannot be abbreviated without completely changing the meaning.

A daughter's name takes the form of a given name followed by a patronymic, meaning the daughter of Rā's al-Ghūl could only be named Talī`a bint Rā's al-Ghūl or Talī`a Rā's al-Ghūl, but never Talī`a al-Ghūl (which does not even inflect for gender). Furthermore, her bastard son Damian would neither inherit the family name Wayne nor the patronymic nasab Rā's al-Ghūl. His name would most likely be rendered as Damian Bruce, Damian ibn Bruce, or Damian ibn Abīhi ("son of his father"). Why he has a Greek ism instead of an Arabic one is anyone's guess.

Apologies for the digression, but this particular point is peculiarly troublesome.

I thought Damian had a name that translated to "son of the Bat"?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-21 06:24pm

Anguirus wrote:I'm 100% sure, since my second viewing. Gordon tells the police to converge on 250-52nd street, where Dent was supposed to be. They instead arrived at Dawes' location just in time to see her killed.

I don't get why this required detective work; when Gordon says 'where are you going', Batman hoarsely screams 'RACHEL'. This subtly clues in the attentive viewer that he's going to save Rachel.

Frankly, people who missed this missed much of the power of this sequence - Rachel knows Batman will come for her, and so does Harvey - that's why Harvey is convinced he's going to die, but Rachel will live. However, the Joker is hilariously dishonest and rules everyone, because what exact reason was there to believe him again? If he hadn't needed Dent to go nuts, he'd have lied about BOTH and not even given them a chance to save anyone.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2008-07-21 06:45pm

^ Well let's be fair: I was already 95% sure when the question was asked in this thread.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-21 06:48pm

Yeah same; I've actually seen this movie twice now (which isn't something I do) and it's very clear what he's doing. Some of the stuff people here ask seems pretty strange to me sometimes.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2008-07-21 06:50pm

LadyTevar wrote:I thought Damian had a name that translated to "son of the Bat"?

Damian's alternate universe counterpart in Kingdom Come is named Ibn al-Khuffāsh (written rather curiously as "Ibn al-Xu'ffasch"), but Damian has not used this name. In any case, Ibn al-Khuffāsh is not a personal name, but rather a fanciful pseudo-patronymic.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2008-07-21 07:14pm

Faithfulness to the source material isn't the deciding factor in whether a movie adaptation is good or not. If Nolan wanted to take any one of the Batman villains and completely change him/her for the third movie, the movie could still stand on its own if it's good.

That said, I don't like it when adaptations stray wildly from their source. There are fans out there who know both Talia and Catwoman, and they'd be very annoyed if the characters were merged. I don't see any reason why they must be merged (or even for either of them to be used in the third movie). Either one could be brought faithfully to the movie without significant changes. If you can make a good movie without pissing on the fans who do know or care about these characters, why piss on the fans?

The only time I don't have problems with a changes in adaptations is if the original idea is completely lame, stupid, or vile. For instance if they decided to adapt some of Karen Traviss's stories for the upcoming Clone Wars series, I would be perfectly fine if they shitcanned her ideas about 3 million clones or the Jedi being immoral conspirators.

Now imagine if in the new Clone Wars movie or series, they decided to completely change Anakin or Obi-Wan around into something they weren't. The result could still be good, but why make such a change when you can just come up with some other good idea that doesn't contradict everything that came before?

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-07-21 08:57pm

Stark wrote:
Anguirus wrote:I'm 100% sure, since my second viewing. Gordon tells the police to converge on 250-52nd street, where Dent was supposed to be. They instead arrived at Dawes' location just in time to see her killed.
I don't get why this required detective work; when Gordon says 'where are you going', Batman hoarsely screams 'RACHEL'. This subtly clues in the attentive viewer that he's going to save Rachel.

I'd assumed Batman said "Rachel" to send the police there while he went to get Dent. Of course, the Joker being a compulsive liar makes more sense.

As an aside, am I the only person who absolutely loved that the Joker made every crime an ethical dilemma?

Paolo · Post by **Paolo** » 2008-07-21 09:26pm

Confirmed.

Gordon: "Which one you goin' after?"
Batman: "RACHEL!"

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2008-07-21 09:41pm

I'm not sure if you noticed but I'm rather anal about saving people, especially people I care about. Unless it was the next best thing to impossible for Rachel to NOT survive until Gordon got to her that was rather painfully obvious.

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2008-07-22 12:47am

One thing that continues to bug me about the Nolanverse Batman is his costume. The mask is awful and looks downright painful for Bale to wear. Personally, as shitty as Batman & Robin was, I think it had the best batmask so far. At least it didn't look like it was too small for Clooney's head...

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2008-07-22 01:29am

Saw the movie, and aside from the Disappearing Pencil trick(Tada!) I have to ask.

Was the Joker telling the truth about the Ferries?
In this bit of the movie two ferries full of people are sitting stuck in the harbor full of bombs each ferry is given a small box with a detonator inside and told the detonator is the one for the other ferry. It's a modification on the old morality experiments conducted during the 60's.

The Joker tells them the detonator they have is for the other ferry and the ferry who uses theirs first gets to live while the other one dies. Was he in fact telling the truth? Or would have it been more in character for the detonator to be the one for the ship their on?

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-07-22 01:56am

Mr Bean wrote:Saw the movie, and aside from the Disappearing Pencil trick(Tada!) I have to ask.

Was the Joker telling the truth about the Ferries?
In this bit of the movie two ferries full of people are sitting stuck in the harbor full of bombs each ferry is given a small box with a detonator inside and told the detonator is the one for the other ferry. It's a modification on the old morality experiments conducted during the 60's.

The Joker tells them the detonator they have is for the other ferry and the ferry who uses theirs first gets to live while the other one dies. Was he in fact telling the truth? Or would have it been more in character for the detonator to be the one for the ship their on?

In this instance, I think he was telling the truth. He was counting on one of the boats blowing the other up, which was why he made a point about having Batman there to watch. It was the culminating public act of his plan, Dent being the person part, of the citizens of Gotham turning on each other. He would have probably blown the other one up anyway, but the detonators on each ship were for the other ships explosive.

Balrog · Post by **Balrog** » 2008-07-22 01:56am

Mr Bean wrote:The Joker tells them the detonator they have is for the other ferry and the ferry who uses theirs first gets to live while the other one dies. Was he in fact telling the truth? Or would have it been more in character for the detonator to be the one for the ship their on?

That's what I originally expected as well, the civilian pulls the trigger and they get blown up. I don't think you can take anything the Joker says at face value, so it could be that each detonator only blew up its own ship, or both ships at once. He's a crazy motherfucker, you can only guess in the end.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2008-07-22 02:37am

Anyone else watch the History channel specials they have been running about Batman?

Batman Tech
and
Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight

I am not sure why the History channel is playing them but they are, and they are quite good.