Official "The Dark Knight" SPOILER Thread

[IrishJedi]

I hated Burton's Gotham City, personally... especially the one in BATMAN RETURNS. Those sets were so small and used so many times that it seemed like Burton's Gotham could fit in my garage.

Schumacher upped the scope properly, but then drowned it out in garish colors and absurd architecture. And they still looked like obvious sets.

Nolan gets it just right. Shooting on location was a tremendous decision... but even his sets (like The Narrows in BB) are HUGE and realistic. His Gotham City is a large American city, but obviously rotting a bit and intimidating in its own unique ways.

 

[MaulFan]

That's what I love about art, each artist filters it through their mind and gives us a new vision. I love that.

And Sean, I totally agree. That's how I love my comic films, the characters are the same... but they exist in our world. That's even how I am interpreting my Batman figure set. I saw Les' figures and loved what he did with them... and I wanted to do my own. But I wanted to do it as if they were real... It will really show on the future figures in the lineup too.

Bale even describes in an interview, the approach with Begins how it was meant to be portrayed like, ya, it's a bit farfetched, but also not so farfetched that it's impossible. Nolan's Batman could exist in the real world, won't happen, but it is a possiblity.

 

[IrishJedi]

That's a big part of why the 3rd Act of BATMAN BEGINS is so weak. Goyer/Nolan got lazy (I guess) and the result is a series of action events that are almost as fantastical as anything in the previous batflicks.

 

[scubasteve]

That's a big part of why the 3rd Act of BATMAN BEGINS is so weak. Goyer/Nolan got lazy (I guess) and the result is a series of action events that are almost as fantastical as anything in the previous batflicks.

I totally agree. 3rd Act was very anti-climatic for me.

 

[Darth Caedus]

That's a big part of why the 3rd Act of BATMAN BEGINS is so weak. Goyer/Nolan got lazy (I guess) and the result is a series of action events that are almost as fantastical as anything in the previous batflicks.

Yea, how does Batman throwing a little bomb thing, somehow rip the whole back section of the train off? I always wondered that....

 

[MaulFan]

Yea, how does Batman throwing a little bomb thing, somehow rip the whole back section of the train off? I always wondered that....

I think the idea is the speed of the train and the air pressure in the train create and explosion when he unleashes the pressure breaking the window, same principle as movies where a bullet's shot on a plane and pressure rips it open.

 

[Gruff Old Bear]

Since I have a fundamental resistance to spoilers, it's probably mean to drop in and say this, but I saw the film last Friday night, at what was only its second unspooling, for an awards audience. Nolan, Oldman, Gyllenhaal, and Eckhart were all there for a Q&A. I believe the first screening was for reviewers, and took place the night before.

I will say that some of the spoilers I've read here are right, but others are wrong. And that Nolan was asked about a third film and he just gasped and sort of collapsed -- he said he'd just finished this one and couldn't bear to even think about it yet. He was also asked about the use of CGI, and he said it was minimal, that most of the effects were done the old-fashioned way. He specifically mentioned a shot where a building blows up in the background while Heath Ledger is in the foreground doing something else. Heath had one take, and Nolan said he still didn't know how you can avoid looking back at an explosion behind you. But they found a building slated for demolition and blew it up. The effects guy is the man who has done all the recent Bond films.

He also said that the Batpod really does what you see, though the stunt driver who rides it is the only person alive who can ride it, because it doesn't ride like a motorcycle. He said the guy who built the Batpod, when he saw Nolan's design (a full-size 3D model), said, "You really don't know anything about motorbikes, do you?" (Same guy said a few years back, upon seeing the Tumbler design, "You do realize it's got no front axle?")

All the car chases were real, and all the car flips were real, and Nolan praised the coordinator of the car gags, saying the cars and trucks always fell exactly where he wanted them to. Not much was said about the Two-Face makeup, except that Eckhart joked that it was rarely complete when he was summoned to the set (there are plenty of shots were it's only partly revealed). I think that aside from the various "gliding" aerial shots of Batman soaring with his extended cape, the Two-Face makeup is where CGI had to have come in. You'll see what I mean.

Nolan said all of the major "set-pieces," including the bank holdup and all the car chases, were filmed with IMAX cameras. A 35mm print looks slightly sharper in these sections (that's what was unspooled at this screening), but he said on the IMAX screen it will be incredible.

Gyllenhaal revealed that she's never been a fan of comic books, and had no particular affinity for Batman when she started. She said the moment it changed for her was the first time he saved her life and wrapped her up in that cape. The audience loved that one.

Oldman was lauded for all his past work, and asked about how he approached the Jim Gordon character. He said it's always a different handle for each role, but for this one, he deadpanned, "I'm trying to make glasses and a mustache sexy."

That's my report for now. After seeing the pile-on for Indy IV, I'm reluctant to build up expectations. You'll all make up your own minds. One thing we'll all agree on though: the loss of Heath Ledger is a huge one for filmgoers.

 

[OSCORP]

Dunno if it's been posted yet but...

Heath Ledger delivers brilliantly as the Joker <hr style="color: rgb(9, 37, 54);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --> <!-- message --> LOS ANGELES - The buzz over Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight" for the last several months was justified. With his final full film role, Ledger delivers what may be remembered as the finest performance of his career.


A press screening of the "Batman Begins" sequel Thursday night had the audience cackling along with Ledger's Joker, a depraved creature utterly without conscience whom the late actor played with gleeful anarchy.

At times sounding like a cross between tough guy James Cagney in a gangster flick and Philip Seymour Hoffman's fastidious Truman Capote, Ledger elevates Batman's No. 1 nemesis to a place even Jack Nicholson did not take him in 1989's "Batman."

Nicholson's Joker was campy and clever. Ledger's Joker is an all-out terror, definitely funny but with a lunatic moral mission to drag all of Gotham, the city Batman thanklessly protects, down to his own dim assessment of humanity.

Spewing alternate personal histories for how he got the horrible scars on his face, the Joker hides behind distorted clown makeup that looks like a chalk drawing left out in the rain.

The Joker masterminds a series of escalating abductions, assassination attempts, murders and bombings, all aimed at calling out Batman (Christian Bale) and proving to the tormented vigilante hero that they are two sides of the same coin.

"You complete me," the Joker tells Batman, dementedly borrowing Tom Cruise's sappy romantic line from "Jerry Maguire."

Long before Ledger's death in January from an accidental prescription drug overdose, his collaborators on "The Dark Knight" had been describing his performance as a new high in the art of villainy for a comic-book adaptation.

Director Christopher Nolan, reuniting with "Batman Begins" star Bale, told The Associated Press earlier this year that Ledger came through with precisely what he had envisioned for this take on the Joker, "a young, anarchic presence, somebody who is genuinely threatening to the establishment."

"It was though they'd taken the Joker and all the colors, everything of it, and just kind of put him through a Turkish prison for a decade or so," Bale told the AP. "It's like he's gone through that personal hell to come out being this, if you can even call him mad, at the end here."

A best-actor Academy Award nominee for "Brokeback Mountain," Ledger has earned fresh Oscar buzz for "The Dark Knight," which could land him in the supporting-actor race.

Running just over two and a half hours, "The Dark Knight" is a true crime epic. Throughout, the Joker's bag of tricks is bottomless, twisted to the point of horror-flick sick.

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical," Michael Caine's butler Alfred tells Bruce, who's trying to decipher the Joker's motives. "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Come July 18, when "The Dark Knight" lands in theaters, the world will be watching Ledger burn up the screen.

https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080627/...ght_first_look

 

[Entropy]

Thanks for the review Gruff. Sounds good. If the story is well written and makes sense it will avoid the pile on that the lackluster Indy film received.

 

[IrishJedi]

I just received a Domino's Pizza email. Apparently, there will be a give-away for a custom TDK Xbox 360:

 

[DarkArtist81]

Great review Gruff! I always trust your judgement, and I know how horrible things got with the Indy IV situation... that was not pretty.

I doubt this film will get any of that kind of flack, and I am glad you got to see it early... I envy you so much for that. I know these next 3 weeks are going to drag... I cannot wait to see this movie and soak up the spectacle of it all.

 

[UTtoyfan]

I'm in the same boat with you Josh. These next 3 weeks are going soooo slow!!!!!

And heck yeah the car chases and flips are real. Chicago IS Gotham City!
Only Nolan can have police cars fall into the Chicago River.

 

[MaulFan]

Curious, in the latest linked trailer, there's this shot of Two-Face and Eric Roberts' character. I thought someone mentioned Roberts' character being the one to make him Two-Face. Interested to see why they're in the car together.

 

[UTtoyfan]

Curious, in the latest linked trailer, there's this shot of Two-Face and Eric Roberts' character. I thought someone mentioned Roberts' character being the one to make him Two-Face. Interested to see why they're in the car together.

interesting! Maybe Two-Face sorta kidnaps Robert's character and takes him for one last ride? Then it's off to the fishes!

 

[JGouse0498]

Spoiler

Apparently, Two-Face abducts Maroni (Eric Roberts) and his driver. He flips for Maroni, and it comes up heads. Maroni lives, and Two-Face says something to effect of "Heads. You're lucky."

Then he flips for the driver, and it comes up SCRATCHED heads. "Your driver isn't", and he kills the driver. The car flips, and I believe then it cuts to another scene.

 

[MaulFan]

Thanks for the info SithLord, but no need for spoiler tags in this thread, this is an open thread of saying what you want.

 

[scubasteve]

You can see the car flip in that Wizard World footage.

 

[MaulFan]

What's cool in the WW footage is that shot of Batman running on top of Police cars. Part of me is thinking that's like the garage at GPD and after Batman snaps on the Joker in the interrogation room, he's forced to run away from the cops as an outlaw.

 

[scubasteve]

What's cool in the WW footage is that shot of Batman running on top of Police cars. Part of me is thinking that's like the garage at GPD and after Batman snaps on the Joker in the interrogation room, he's forced to run away from the cops as an outlaw.

You are exactly right. It's right outside the compound. We can assume the he makes his run sometime after the goon explodes.

 

[MaulFan]

How cool was the shot of the cell phone lighting up inside the guy as the medics are checking him out.