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[Doc]

I thought the submarine/bat thing was intentional, Christian Bale is about to say 'Just like a bat' and Morgan Freeman corrects him with 'Submarine'.

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah, that was my read of it.

Bruce was gonna go for the obvious, Lucius interrupted with the subtle, hence the funny.

[Choop]

imax was great, they blended the 35mm film with the 70mm imax format beautifully. the sequences filmed in 70mm weren't noticeably crisper or that much more detailed, but they lent a certain grandeur of scope to those scenes - primarily the major action sequences and wide helicopter-style shots.

also when the hell did lucius fox say he hired ed nygma? i didn't hear this line either time i saw the dark knight, but it's been floating around the intarwubs like it was pictures of miley cyrus.

[Doc]

Yeah I can't either. I think what it may all actually be in reference to is some of the viral marketing stuff that came out before the movie. One of the things they did was an edition of the "Gotham Times" and that contained a letter from 'Edward Nashton' but then it also contained an ad for the 'Iceberg lounge' which is a penguin reference. On top of that I doubt the viral marketing stuff had anything to do with Nolan et al anyway.

Another probably meaningless reference that people are probably reading too much into: The guy who figures out who batman is is called 'Mr. Reese' or mysteries. So some people are saying he might be the riddler but I don't see it, partly because they've stick broadly to the comics so far as far as names and so on go but mainly because that guy wasn't a very interesting character so I don't want to see him again.

[jough]

This might be my imagination but I swear the "here's my card" line is different in the commercial than in the movie.

Not your imagination - a LOT of the lines or scenes from the trailers were of different takes or angles than were used in the actual film.  I found it kinda disturbing, since I'd seen the trailers a few thousand times so the film sounded "wrong" to me.

[Choop]

this is why i don't watch trailers

[littlefallsmets]

Here's a little secret that is probably obvious:

Often its not even that they took that kind of stuff from rough cut stuff that didn't end up in the released movie... occasionally, they actually loop new lines and line deliveries for the purposes of more suscinct premise-summary in the trailers and ads.

Sometimes they even shoot them on-set, if the marketing plan is rolling before the picture's in the can, such as with a Batman superblockbuster... but more usually, they sneak them in with the lines they're re-recording for the purposes of the main film.

If you don't have much pull, of course, even the director and producer have no creative input on the trailers and stuff because they're considered a product of the distributor and not the filmmaker... though if you have leverage, it can be very different.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Finally saw this last night (the wife 'n' kids are out of town, I said "I'm going to a movie in an actual theater!  Whooo!").  Agree with much of previous commentary--they pretty well knocked this one out of the park.  Ledger for Best Supporting Actor, please.

I was really irritated that they trotted out a lame-ass origin story early on, and then really pleased and vindicated when he told two alternate tales over the course of the film. 

Agreed, and I'm glad I'm not making stuff up here.  I read (post-viewing) Ebert's review where he calls out the Joker's treatment by his father, and I went "wait, he told at least two stories for how he got his scars, and was starting on another when Batman punched him in the face or something."

[Carlos del Vaca]

There are, however, two things that bugged me in the movie.  Hidden for spoilery-ness, though I'd hope anyone who hasn't seen the movie but wants to has the good sense to avoid this topic altogether as I've done for several weeks.

1.  When the Joker crashes the Harvey Dent fundraiser at Bruce's place, Batman ends up jumping off the balcony to save Rachel.  So what happens with the Joker still upstairs?  Does he rob everyone?  Kill people at random?  Or does he just say "Well.... bye!"

2.  I know, it's a movie, you're supposed to suspend your disbelief for the duration.  But when the Joker blows up the hospital, it's not just one big bomb, it's a somewhat controlled detonation across the entire hospital.  I know he has a tremendous amount of cash, and has an uncanny ability to pull off capers, but you're telling me that the Joker, or his minions, were able to plant ALL those explosives around the hospital and not be discovered, either in the act or after they were planted?

[side_show]

Well, carlos,  (whited out to prevent spoilers)in the case of number 2, he was dressed as a nurse, so, I'm sure he had lots of time.  I mean, didn't you notice how well he rocked the swagger of wearing that cute little dress?

What really bothered me was, how come every phone in Gotham could do that sonar thing.  Did everyone buy new phones?  Otherwise, I find it really hard to believe the technology was preexisting in the majority of phones to do that.

In the end, I really enjoyed Health Ledger's performance, even though I went in very skeptical with all the buzz.  I didn't really like Bale's performance - the way he differentiated his voice between when he was Wayne and when he was Batman really annoyed me.

Another thing that really bothered me was the way they used Gordon's family to manipulate the audience emotionally.  I mean, the wife is basically a non-character who we see weeping from sorrow, then joy, like emotional tags of how we're supposed to feel.  Under analysis, when he goes to his wife to reveal that he's not really dead, it's within seconds that Two Face plunges to his death, and Gordon instantly comes running behind Batman to check out the corpse where it fell.  Dude, you let your wife and child believe you were dead, and you're all "Hey, honey, I'm not dead after all - oooh hold on a sec.  There'll be time for hugs and explanations later, I want to go look at a dead body with my buddy Batman.  Oh, and never mind protecting our son from the horrible gore of seeing a corpse, just let him run out of the apartment behind me.  Seeing Two Face lying dead and mangled in a pool of his own blood won't scar him for life, especially if he can catch another glimpse of Batman! I mean, how cool is that?"  That sort of writing short hand... I dunno.  I think it's unnecessary to hold up simplified flashcards for an audience about what they're supposed to feel like that.  But maybe that's just me.

I did enjoy it for what it was, as a popcorn flick.  I think it's a little soon for some of the declarations I've heard in the media of this film as a classic just because it made a lot of money.  Great films, the real greats that stand out over time, they're a little more ambiguous than this one, they leave the door opened so that 10, 20 years from now you can still watch it and ask questions of the art and of yourself.  They leave a window open so that your impression can change, so that it means different things to you at different points in your life and I don't feel like this flick does that.

[CortJstr]

The voice thing bothered me just because his Batman voice made me want to cough. I'm sure a DC-geek knows more about this than I do, but apparently he does the Batman voice even when talking to people that know who he is because Batman is such a different personality in his mind. Apparently you can hook Bruce Wayne up to a lie detector and have him answer "no, I'm not Batman" because the personalities are so completely separated.

[dejavroom]

1.  When the Joker crashes the Harvey Dent fundraiser at Bruce's place, Batman ends up jumping off the balcony to save Rachel.  So what happens with the Joker still upstairs?  Does he rob everyone?  Kill people at random?  Or does he just say "Well.... bye!"

2.  I know, it's a movie, you're supposed to suspend your disbelief for the duration.  But when the Joker blows up the hospital, it's not just one big bomb, it's a somewhat controlled detonation across the entire hospital.  I know he has a tremendous amount of cash, and has an uncanny ability to pull off capers, but you're telling me that the Joker, or his minions, were able to plant ALL those explosives around the hospital and not be discovered, either in the act or after they were planted?

Chris Nolan script Chris Nolan script Chris Nolan script Chris Nolan script

[Doc]

What really bothered me was, how come every phone in Gotham could do that sonar thing.  Did everyone buy new phones?  Otherwise, I find it really hard to believe the technology was preexisting in the majority of phones to do that.

More than that, I was wondering 'Does every badguy in the skyscraper have a cellphone? Even if they did by the time it was just the Joker and Bats, the Joker certainly didn't have one.

Edited because I can't work out what colour to make that and y'all have seen it by now anyway.

[jough]

Didn't the Joker have a cell phone?  I thought he was on the phone at some point in the film?

[Doc]

Now that you mention that I'm wondering if he did after all... I'm going to use the 'knives and lint' defense and assume he took the phone from an underling.