Observations about "The Dark Knight" that I haven't heard people make already

[mmcirvin]

1. The mayor was played by Nestor Carbonell, who played Batmanuel on the live-action Tick. Granted that Batmanuel was an inferior version of Die Fledermaus, there's still something slightly cool about this.

2. As others have observed, the movie wrestles with, and in the end is at least consistent with, the proposition that Batman is actually a socially destructive force in Gotham City. Bruce Wayne even has his dark night of the soul in which he starts to think it's the case. Supposing we assume that, who is the crucial villain of the piece? Alfred the butler, the former forest badass of Burma who insists to Bruce Wayne that a lawless and costumed hard man is still necessary. Alfred has a lot to lose if Batman ever gets unmasked—as stated, he'd probably end up in jail along with Bruce. His pep talk is probably as much to protect his own hide as anything else. Future movies might do well to run with Alfred-as-dark-puppetmaster, though I suppose it would be pretty surprising if they took it much further.

Comments

I kept getting distracted with Michael Caine in the role

[timchuma.livejournal.com]

YOU WERE ONLY SUPPOSED TO BLOW THE BLOODY DOORS OFF!

Also, a post-movie exchange between Sam and me, noting variant concerns of accuracy

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Me: "No ballerina is that stacked."

Sam: "If you suddenly canceled a performance to go on a boat with some billionaire, would you ever work again?"

Re: Also, a post-movie exchange between Sam and me, noting variant concerns of accuracy

[timchuma.livejournal.com]

I could post photos, but I would get into trouble again.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

As usual, it comes down to TDK's Bruce Wayne having Peter Parker's (from the Raimi movies, strictly speaking) problem-- if his friends knew that the superhero was he, they'd have proper context for understanding that the superhero decisions based on personal feelings would be apparent to the friends (Harry Osborne/Harvey Dent) and that would completely acquit them of their apparent crimes. It rather disappoints me that the personal stuff comes down to that, but of course, you figure that Spiderman and Batman can't really ever be a blessing to those who're closest to him (who are inevitably those who know his alter-ego). How weird would it be if the alter-ego could live a life completely unaffected by the crime and general hazards of coexisting with supervillians, and yet as a superhero he kept having to frequently save and re-save an unrelated group of danger-prone, commonly-targetted-for-crime people?

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

We saw it again last night, and I realized that it's (in a way) about Commissioner Gordon and his attempts to do first aid on Gotham. He's more of a character than Batman, gets more range, is easier to listen to and look at. And Batman showboats but ultimately does more harm than good, and in the end all he can be is a scapegoat.
I still don't get the people of Gotham. They seem to do everything pretty arbitrarily.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Unlike Batman Begins, which is really about Batman, here he's a secondary character. The Joker's front and center, obviously, yet he's more a monster (a really good monster) than a character; he talks all the time yet reveals nothing about himself in the process, and the movie deliberately doesn't tell us how he came to be.

So the stronger characters are Gordon and Harvey Dent, and Dent doesn't really become interesting until he goes bad. Gordon was already a great character in the first movie. What the hell do you do, if you're a decent cop who suddenly finds himself in a superhero vs. supervillains story? To go nuts and become one of them would be the obvious option, but he refuses to do that.

[aderack.livejournal.com]

I think the creepiest thing about Ledger's joker is when he starts to tell his backstory a second time... and it's completely different from the first time he recounted it. And yet he says it with the exact same conviction and fury.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

And, surprisingly, the movie only has him do this twice instead of invoking the Rule of Three.