[Spoilers!] Dark Knight

[Zangya]

[Yamu]

I just finished watching it for a second time.

Damn if that ending does not get me every time. I am a hetero-man-crush on the Nolans and the sheer beauty and poetry of the ending. I appreciate that Chris and his brother took a superhero story and instead of just making it 'hey the good guy kicks the bad guy's ass!' added level upon level on the the contrast between good and evil and what those words even mean. The Joker was still funny but the second go round I was enraptured by the story. I just love how the Joker does not want anything, he really is a Satanic character and the battle is over the soul of the city not just material gains.

The Nolans are like RPers of the big screen.

I really am even after two viewings in awe of this movie.

[Pink Underoo]

How can you post with the Nolans' cocks in both of your hands?

[Yamu]

I've got one in my mouth and years of porn have made me quite adept at typing one handed.

Seriously, I think 'The Dark Knight' is fucking genius.

[Pink Underoo]

Just wondering.

[Krillin]

Holy shit.

This movie was littered with philosophy. Whispers of Nietzsche's "overman" in Joker (I'm not a schemer; I just DO).

There's tons more, but I am exhausted, both mentally (that movie kicked my ass), and physically (work today kicked my ass). One of the best movies I've seen in ages, though. Death aside, Heath Ledger deserves Best Actor of everything I've seen thus far this year.

EDIT: Just finished reading the thread.

I have to agree with Yamu about the Joker; he is not a traditional character in-and-of-himself. While he is certainly human (he bleeds, he has tics, etc.), there is an otherworldliness about him that is not explained. He is a force, of unknown origins but known intentions. Chaos. He is absolute simplicity, immediate action. There is no inhibition. It isn't that the Joker is impulsive; that implies that he operates on the same spectrum as others.

It's fascinating stuff.

[Bardock]

Possibly my favorite thing about Joker besides the way he presents himself has to be that very quote: "I'm not a schemer; I just DO." The very deliberate and calculated nature of his ploys would suggest otherwise, and yet it really does seem like he just sees something and reacts to it. It's a weird paradox, like he appears as though he's randomly moving chess pieces around the board, but they just happen to form an elaborate strategy.

[Pink Underoo]

He is the Perfect Enemy, but without any development to justify it - there wasn't a single scene to explain how he set up any of the overly complicated traps that he made. He exists and acts simply because the story demands it. That's why I call him a contrived character. I'd expect this kind of thing from a pre-teen cartoon, but it's annoying when he's the centerpiece of a multimillion dollar movie.

What really irks me, though, is how they gutted out all of the substance from the main antagonist yet somehow managed to make the movie two and a half hours long.

[Waffuru]

Please stop posting.

[Android-18]

I just saw the movie, it was so good. It makes it so much sader to know that Heath is gone, he did so well in this movie.

[Pink Underoo]

Please stop posting.

I don't see "fan wanking only" in the thread title. -_-

[Krillin]

Pink, you are entirely entitled to your opinion, and as opinion is not fact, it can not be labeled right and wrong.

But you are so very, very wrong. Purely logically, the faults you cite in the character of Joker are not objective shortcomings, but rather, issues you have personally, much how a particular person might be irked by the color yellow, while most others are not.

Read "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", then tell me what you think.

[Aero]

The only thing I question about the movie is how to clown goons with cables can bring down a helicopter. Seriously. Did they connect the ends of the cables to anything?

[Pink Underoo]

tell me what you think of this:

in one scene the antagonist claims that he does not scheme, he just does.

however, throughout the movie he is the source of many a wacky doom scenario that require complicated orchestration, such that cannot be done at the drop of a hat, and covert executions so as not to alert the do-gooders before it's time. nothing that he does is explained through dialog or shown visually, so this leads you to believe that:

a) his actions cannot be explained, so it's purely plot-induced
b) he's just that cool, because oh my god, just wow, i can't believe how awesome he is!

now, don't get me wrong. the story calls for a bad guy, so one is required. also, the Joker is very much like a revamped version of the original from the comic book... which was made three or four generations ago and was designed for a young/teen audience... and this Joker was definitely shoved into the hole where the antagonist should be, but there is no Joker-shaped hole in the plot. =\

[Yamu]

You are very hung up on the lack of characterization. I understand you do not like that the Joker was not developed but he was not supposed to be.

He is a self admitted agent of Chaos. He has no motivation beyond bringing Gotham into his own dark void. There is no characterization for the Joker because that would ruin is aura of mystery. Alfred when he talks to Bruce talks about how hard it is impossible to fight a man with no motivation beyond watching the world burn. The thing you dislike is a major plot point for the movie and how it deals with the battle for the soul of Gotham between the conflicted Batman and the absolute Joker.

If the Joker WANTED something tangible like wealth or sex it would have been a completely different, and worse, movie.

Aero: They are using the same gun that Happy and Dopey, the bank robbers, use at the begging the tow hooks with the steel cables attached that used to zip line on at the begging. The steel cord gets caught in the rotor and and stops it spinning forcing the cab itself to rotate wildly.

[Pink Underoo]

What the hell are you rambling about?

When did I ever ask for him to seek more or anything other than "chaos"? Oh, that's right, never.

It's just that he is so far out of place in this movie it's like the main antagonist was completely forgotten about until the day they starting shooting the film. A few changes in dialog and scenery, and you could impose almost any other major Batman villain into the story.

edit: no, forget it, leave the movie as is, except change every time someone says Joker to another villain's moniker, and you could impose them into the story.

[Yamu]

What? I have no idea what you are trying to argue about now. It really feels like you went into the movie expecting to not like it and that is all you got out of it.

If you can see that the Joker's only aim is to play the game, that there is no other motivation, then I have no idea what you're complaining about.

From what you've posted you say that you don't like that the Joker has basic organizational skills, can lead a group, knows how to shoot a gun, and can build a bomb. None of actions the Joker induces are complicated, they are merely ornate. The most complicated thing he does he build bombs with synched timers.

Any action he takes are actually pretty basic and reactionary that revolve around a single theme.

[Pink Underoo]

Here, I'll just cut/paste some excerpts from my previous posts.

No, I definitely saw the movie.

Sure felt like garbage and cheap flashy nonsense, though.

They stuck with the campy BS like letting him live even though the original intent of the comic was to kill him off (he's irredeemably evil, you know, and when you defeat him once you defeat him a thousand times) and the conflicts he had with Batman in the movie were totally phoned in.

When you have a character, particularly a major villain, whose existence in the world is an end unto itself, who nobody is allowed to kill throughout the bulk of the movie, that makes no fatal mistakes, that has an unexplainable power to set up ludicrous situations at the drop of a hat, and in the end fails miserably (as he must), yet he simply does not die (not externally or internally) it comes off as contrived. I guess that's fine for a serial like comic books or TV shows, but this is neither.

Another thing that's bugging me is that time when Joker figured out that Batman was hot for Barbara, which implies forethought [EDITOR'S NOTE: this is scheming, invalidating the "I don't scheme" bullshittery] when setting up the dual time bomb scenario, while his actual dialog was the subtext of the scene (about how people are only as good as society allows, etc).

He exists and acts simply because the story demands it. That's why I call him a contrived character. I'd expect this kind of thing from a pre-teen cartoon, but it's annoying when he's the centerpiece of a multimillion dollar movie.

Get the picture? And for the love of buttsecks, can we jump onto a new page now? That photoshopped image of Harley is making me nauseous.

[Krillin]

I guess you're not big on philosophy, Underoo. A paradox does not necessarily mean a mistake, and Joker can be summed in more than one paradox.

My argument is that you're simply drawing from the surface of the character. If you dig down deeper, there's a lot more to him. The point is, with the little we are actually presented of Joker, one could write pages upon pages of thought. It is not a reflection of a single mind as much as it is a reflection of elements in the psyche of all humanity. That does not necessarily mark it an impersonal force; after all, Joker is very much a person.

It isn't stupid, or bullshit. You just don't like it. There's a difference.

[Dehan]

Best part of the movie to me is the Joker killing one of the mob bosses early on and making his cronies fight for a spot in his own crew, I was just blown away by that lol.

I enjoyed this movie, I just think Two-Face wasn't needed...at least not the way they did it. It was like Venom in Spidey-3. Didn't have enough screen-time for me at least not as Two-Face. Harvey Dent had more than enough S.T.