2 Responses to “The Dark Knight”

  1. Chris 21 July 2008 at 3:15 pm #

    Ok, I’ll make this quick:

    Harvey Dent snapped. It just happens to people… In comic books… All the time. You have to remember that they are making a movie based on a comic. In the comic, Harvey Dent snapped with much much less motivation. In fact, I thought the movie did a much better job of giving him a reason to snap. Also, take a look at this face:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Face

    They did a fabulous job of his face in the movie.

    As for the bullet thing… It’s Batman. The cell phone thing… It’s batman. Plus once he was in that building he didn’t need the cellphones to give him the image, his suit was emitting the sonar and analyzing it on the fly.

    SPOILERS:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

    If anything, I think the most unbelievable thing is that supposedly Lucius Fox is able to invent and create all that stuff all on his own. But that’s how it basically is in the comics…

    So really, the movie was incredibly accurate to the spirit of the comics.

    Actually the only thing that actually disappointed me about the movie was the fact that Two-Face might not have lived. Just like it pissed me off that Batman killed Ras al Gouhl in the first one (not saving someone when you easily could have and killing them are two sides of the same coin). It was better in this movie though because Batman didn’t decide to let Two-Face die, it was just practically unavoidable, and they never actually said whether or not two face was dead.

    I’d give the movie 0 beratings simple because this is the comic I read, and it was less “unbelievable” than the comic. I guess I would accept an argument that gave the comic 4 beratings, and this movie 2 beratings as a result of it following the spirit of the comics so closely, and the fact that Harvey Dent’s burning face looked SO FAKE. It brought me out of the movie at one of the most dramatic moments and caused me to turn to my wife and say (surprise surprise) “that looked so fake.”

    One thing I disliked though was that Joker didn’t ever give anyone the poison laughing gas stuff, and that the Joker stole Two-Face’s duality style of crime. Although they Jokerized it by making his goal chaos.

    One thing I would have changed:

    The Joker is a liar. He is an icon of the devil. They should have had one of the boats try and blow up the other boat, but when they flip the switch it really just blows their boat up. Then, at midnight, the other boat should have blown up anyways. There is no way Joker really would have told the truth about the predicament imo…

    I LOVED that the Joker lied about which person was where so that he tricked Batman into saving Harvey Dent instead of the girl. I LOVED that he put the hostages in clown masks and dressed the bad guys as doctors. I LOVED that he put a hit out on the accountant who was going to oust the Batman.

    This movie was so unbelievably awesome because unlike the other Batman movies (minus Batman Begins), you could just take the frames of this movie, draw them, and staple them together, and have a perfectly executed Batman comic. So really, this was more than a movie. This was a Batman comic magically, expertly brought to life. Spectacular. I can not wait for the next one to come out. Christopher Nolan was born to make Batman movies.

  2. The Gimcracker 21 July 2008 at 4:06 pm #

    Great observations. I loved the same things as you. Interesting thoughts on the Joker… he was awesome. And I agree that Christopher Nolan is a superb director.

    In response to “…I would accept an argument that gave the comic 4 beratings, and this movie 2 beratings as a result of it following the spirit of the comics so closely…”, that’s exactly what I was about to say until you said it :)

    I will say this: I don’t want a movie to be exactly like a comic if the comic isn’t amazing. I’m not saying the Batman comics aren’t amazing, I’m just throwing an idea out there. I think comics are completely unbelievable, but it works for the comic book industry. I don’t think it works for the film industry.

    You shouldn’t try to completely copy something just for the sake of copying it. You should make your own adaptation of it based on your interpretation of the source. When people say “It wasn’t exactly like the book”, I get so annoyed and reply “Who said the book was perfect?”

    Films should be believable, plain and simple. There should never be a movie made that isn’t 100% believable. If there is, I’m going to berate it. I’m not saying they have to be 100% likely, just 100% believable. I have to be able to say “yeah, I guess that would be possible, although unlikely in ordinary life.” Even for comic book movies.

    2/10 is an amazing score BTW.


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