Wednesday, October 01, 2008

The Dark Knight: Observations After Three Viewings

HUGE SPOILERS FOR TDK! But if you haven't seen Dark Knight yet, you probably don't even know what a Batman is and got here by mistake, so we shouldn't have any problems.

1. What are we meant to assume happens once the smoke grenade in the bank manager's mouth goes off? Will he die of asphyxiation? Will all the hostages die from some sort of toxin in the smoke? Is it just a hilarious non-lethal Joker gag? Let's scratch that last one off the list.

2. Despite the fact that the Joker is characterized in this movie as a knife-aficionado, he uses a huge variety of weapons, and only uses a knife about three times. His arsenal includes: shotgun, machine gun, rifle, bazooka, lead pipe, poison (by proxy), car bomb (by proxy), high explosives, and most memorably, a nice sharp pencil.

More thoughts and questions after the jump...(the best one is the last one)...

*Also more TDK icon samplers after the jump...click them to link to the creator's page.

3. Harvey is the second DA Rachel Dawes is seen having a relationship with (it's heavily implied in Batman Beyond). Considering she barely seems to know what a RICO case is, one might question what exactly they're keeping her around the office for.


4. At the fundraiser, Harvey asks Alfred if he's known Rachel for her whole life, and he charmingly replies, "Not yet, sir!". Oh Alfred. Just give it a day.

5. As Gnerd contributor Degan first pointed out, after Batman jumps out of the window to save Rachel, the rest of Bruce's guest are pretty much screwed, as they all are still stuck in a penthouse full of recovering thugs and, uh, THE JOKER. Anyone care to guess what happens next to Gotham's high society elite? "As long as I'm hee-rre...I know this KILLER party game." Haw. I suck. Anyone else got a better line? Come on, I know some of you write fanfic.

6. Heath Ledger must have had so many more incredible performances in him. Of course I realized this on my first viewing, but every viewing cuts a little deeper.

7. I didn't see that Joker had an I Believe In Harvey Dent sticker on his nurse's uniform until my third viewing. I'm dumb. But this is an important detail for anyone planning a Nurse Joker Halloween costume. Not that I am.


8. Given the fact that the murder of Bruce's parents is public knowledge, Harvey and Natasha must think him extraordinarily nihilistic to flippantly remark, "I grew up here, and I turned out okay."

9. Batman seems to have forgotten his loophole on villain deaths from the last movie, namely: "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you". And yet he saves Joker from a high altitude death, thereby sealing the fate of, if DC comics are to be believed, THE ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION SEVERAL TIMES OVER. Maybe Bats was trying to pull a Gwen Stacy finishing move, but didn't count on The Joker's insanity-powered indestructibility.

One short of a proper top ten list...I can only hope some other helpful multi-viewer will help me out with another observation/nitpick/question.


8 comments:

Alex said...

How about going to great lengths to explain that a fall from a certain height can't kill you, then killing a character that's dropped from, essentially (since we don't have a ruler propped up at any point) the same height?

Degan said...

if you're referring to the fall that the italian takes after batman drops him from the same height-i think its safe to assume that was all in the method of falling... he was dropped feet first and therefore landed (uncomfortably) on his legs... whereas harvey took that spill face first. If you've seen the disturbing footage of the NYPD tasering that naked guy on the second story-you'll know that if you fall a short distance and land on your head... things aren't going to end well.

Or if you're referring to the spill that batman and dawes take from his penthouse-batman had some sort of rope support to slow his fall-he's holding on to a cord when they land on the car.

There. DEBUNKED. for teh win

AHR said...

You nerds are both discounting the fact that HARVEY ISN'T EVEN DEAD!

No shot of a body in the casket! Come on!

It's like I always say, a comic character isn't dead until A. His head is cut off or B. His great love cradles him in her* arms and says, "He's dead." And sometimes not even then. If Two-Face isn't in the next movie I'll eat my hat.


*Heteronormative, I know, but that's how it goes.

Degan said...

Actually, i think the nolans and aaron eckhart have already said as much... that there won't be another twoface appearance and that he's dead as a doornail... granted that could be a lie just to build buzz... but its not like they can keep that kinda thing secret once they start casting... so i hope you have some tasty hat sauce.

Lena said...

Jeez Ana, why can't you guys over at Geekanerd be more homo-friendly? hehehehehe......

AHR said...

Lena, I believe the word you're looking for is "queer-friendly".

But yeah, we're total 'phobes.

Bishop said...

I do have to agree that Harvey's fall/death would have made more sense if they had at least given some indication that he had received a head wound or a broken neck. I didn't think he was dead until they actually started talking about it and had the speech from Gordon.

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