The Dark Knight

[Erinye]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Yeah seriously. Two-Face could easily see Batman's "interference" with "fairness" and/or "justice" in the fact that he stopped him from killing Gordon's son at the end and start directing his hatred towards Batman for taking justice into his own hands or something. They could do so much with the story from here on out, but personally, I don't really care to see any of the villains they've used in the Clooney/Kilmer Batmans again. Others have said, and I will echo it, that Ivy and Freeze are too out of place with the realness of Nolan's vision for the villains. Riddler, I see him almost being a less funny, less sadistic, and poor follow up villain to Ledger's masterpiece of The Joker. That or I've seen the Jim Carrey version too much. I always sort of saw some slight humor in the Riddler though.

The problem I see with making Bane the focus of #3 is that they'd have to have him break the bat, which would seriously fuck up a possible 4th. And not saying that I want to see this continue on for 873 movies or anything, but Nolan is a fucking genius and I will continue to see his movies because they are expertly crafted and polished.

Catwoman makes some sense after reading some of the other replies to it. The rekindling of Waynes ability to love etc. But I don't see how Catwoman could carry an entire movie, and I hate the multiple villain angle. So fuck, I don't know. Two-Face I don't really feel could even hold down half of a movie at this point. Then again I'll just stfu and trust in Nolan since he went and made Ra's Al Ghul a fairly interesting villain and at the very least, the movie that contained him an entertaining one.

[Flinch]

Saw it today. Am going to see it again tomorrow. Spoilers, ahoy!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

- The pencil bit was awesome, but I loved the bit where he's asking the cop how many of his friends he's killed and then goes with that big 'uh oh' face when he says 6.

- The part with the guy who had the cellphone in his stomach? Jesus.

- The hand sanitizer bit with Nurse Joker. Gold.

- I liked how the Renee Montoya character was brought in as Ramirez. That leads me to believe that Two Face isn't dead.

- What was the deal with the black guy with the scars/tattoos on his face? I seem to remember him from the Begins, but can't place him exactly.

- I think that we might see Black Mask as one of the villains in the sequel. I also think that Black Mask might be the Chinese guy, as we didn't actually see him die, he has a vendetta against Batman and Bruce Wayne, and...yeah. I have a couple of other theories about this, but it's going to need another viewing for it.

[Gaereth]

Awesome movie. It wasn't just a great comic book movie, it was a great movie.

If you slapped how I felt walking out of Braveheart and Iron Man together then thats about where I was walking out of this one.

[Castigator]

Hmm... think there are plenty of Villains left to work with.

Put a mob schemer (Black Mask + mob) or a super-brute (Bane, freeing people from Arkham) out for Batman on the one hand, maybe a 'kill-em-all-vigilante' like Red Hood/Jason Todd on the other to continue with the angsty Batman 'where-is-the-line' stuff, and Catwomen (or Talia al Ghul??) as a confuse-Batmans-feeling & hot, leather-clad MacGuffin in need of being saved at the showdown.

The Riddler I always felt was a cheap cop-out to introduce tricky puzzles to show off Batman's 'Detective skills' without needing to come up with a good story to challenge said skills. But than again, milage (and inspiration) may vary.

Also, it would be dare, but one way to continue the 'joker story' without joker might by Harley Quinn. Not sure how this might work, but maybe Nolen's got some brains to do something fun with her to close the story without needing the Joker to appear on-screen. She's the Joker's psychiatrist after all!!!

[Sithro]

I have to admin that I was shocked to see that...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Rachel actually dies. I thought the Joker was holding her back, and then after Dent killed a bunch of people, would let her go and make Dent realize how fucked up he really was, and Rachel would leave him because of the killings, making him even more psycho.

I was wrong.

But it's a good thing, because it shows that Batman can't always save everyone. That no matter what, he's still human.

[Celebrindal]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

At first I thought he let her die because she dumped him, which I was enjoying, because she's ugly as fuck. But I had a "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" moment when Joker explained it.

[Occido]

Saw it tonite, fucking incredible movie.

[Dethfang]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Am I the only one that did not even get the impression that Two-Face was dead? I am not even saying "oh he could be alive," it just didn't seem to me there was even a chance that he was actually dead.

As for new villains I already posted this in a spoiler above but I think that Riddler / Catwoman would be a great combo.

Open the movie with the Penguin, Batman busts him and realize that the Joker inspired a new kind of bold villainry in Gotham. They make a joke about how ridiculous he looks, ridiculous his name is, and how lame his umbrella knife with the spiral is as they lock him away in Arkham. This gives fans a nod to the Penguin without cheesing up the movies by having Batman chase around a fat little sophisticate with his exotic umbrella collection.

Riddler: Motivated by watching Joker's spree and intellectually thinking "I can do better because I am smarter and not insane" kind of crime spree. His ultimate goal would be to outsmart, capture, and unmask Batman through a very elaborate game of cat and mouse. At almost no point in the movie would Batman have a handle on the situation, constantly struggling with someone that is two steps ahead of him and simply egging him on with "riddles." This would really bring Batman into the cerebral side of the character emphasizing him as "the detective."

Catwoman: A woman that is stealing from the mob / criminals mostly. Her Robinhoodesque criminal methods are still criminal and Batman is the only one that can stop her, but he almost agrees with what she is doing. Batman has to come to terms with prioritizing the people he fights as the continued escalation of Gotham's criminal element forces him to focus on these "super criminals." Of course there is also the love interest angle to further cloud his judgment in the matters.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Also having Two-Face and the Scarecrow lurking in the shadows of the movie doing whatever they do brings a heightened sense that Batman just won't be able to keep up with the current state of things.

[SalaciousTunare]

I'm going to get a lock of internet hate for this, but I think a Mr. Freeze done properly with a Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen would be awesome. I think a lot of the hate is directed towards the Arnold version and rightly so.

Catwoman was done before, but so was Joker. The new direction of Christopher Nolan's Batman should not be down played. I expect another Catwoman appearance.

Nolan explained how the Scarecrow worked in a real world sense through hallucinogens, I have complete faith Nolan could make a Mr. Freeze work similarly, the Scarecrow didn't run around in a full scarecrow outfit the way he does in the comics, similarly Mr. Freeze could be more scientist and gadgets, and less freeze and "chilling doom".

[PosterOfStuff]

I am going to get alot of Hate for this lol.

This was a very good movie, not excellent, but very very good. It's a 95percent one, and well worth watching (even more than once).

I really must agree with what people are saying about Heath Ledgers Joker, its what Jonny Depp needed to do with the character Willy Wonka, make it his own. And he totally did. And the most important thing is Heath deseves the accolades for this not because he died, but because he owned.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

The only parts I have issue with is the fact the Joker was too well planned, and in some cases (for example the cellphone guy blowing up) it felt a bit too contrived. THAT is only a very minor complaint, more so when stacked up against:-

The opening bank robery, that was fantastic.
The way they developoed two villians into the movie.
The fact they are developing charactersm and NOT cluttering the whole movie up with overwhelming love stories/interests.

Honestly, the next villian character they choose, ALL they need to do is pick a SOLID actor or actress and give them a decent story and lines. It could be the Riddler, Poison Ivy, Penguin. Just don't go all Spiderman.

I like Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Danny DeVito as the Penguin and I liked Jim Carry as the Riddler. But the shortfalls for those characters (much more so for the Riddler, in fact really the Riddler) was the the plot/lines they had to work with.

[Zarcath]

You can tell who hasn't read the comics or seen the cartoons.

I'd say if anything, Scarecrow didn't play up to the level he's portrayed in the comics. Scarecrow in Begins is tame. I thought his cameo in TDK wasn't great at all (some kind of petty drug deal?).

Some of you might have forgotten but Zsasz was mentioned and seen, twice, in Begins. He's a pretty major villian in the comics, though I don't know much about him myself, he's supposed to be a bad ass serial killer. That seems too much along the lines of Joker though.

Mad Hatter or Clayface would be my top picks. MAYBE Riddler, but I think that would slow down the movie too much (having to solve shit, wheres the action?). Ventriloquist could be a possibility.

If they retire Joker in TDK, the real shame is we'll never get to see Harley Quinn

[Cybsled]

Mistah J! Watcha doin?

I'm killing you Harvey!

It's ok, I know he really loves me!

[whatsamattau]

To the fanbois crying about a joker recast as epic failure, I'll direct you to the first half of this thread where Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker was itself declared epic failure. Heath deserves all the credit in the world for what he did, but the triumph of the first 2 movies is Christopher Nolan's. He's bucked every stereotype of the genre and made probably the best 2 comic book movies ever made. It's not coincidence, he knows what he's doing.

Who cares if he's recast and immediately dismissed because people loved the Ledger joker so much? It's the same god damn question we have to hear now, Ledger or Nicholson? Nolan didn't care much about that, even though he knew it would stare his new movie in the face. I'm pretty confident in saying Nolan won that round, and he'd win it again if he chose to. Hell, I'd get all tingly just watching him try.

Besides, the best storyline is the one with a living breathing joker, and Nolan is going to tell the best story. It's pretty much already set in stone, the joker will be recast.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

For the 2-face story line: I hate to break it to you, but he's dead. Every single indicator says he's dead. Do you want the coroner checking his pulse to prove it to you? It would take terrible storywriting to bring him back to life (essentially repeating the Gordon revival line, a faked death followed by hiding him away. Twice in two movies? no thanks), and has already been said, they are going to tell the best story, not the most convenient one.

[Zeste]

Hard to do Mr. Freeze in Nolans universe, it's too realistic, not alot of room for strange powers. Like you could NEVER have Superman in this universe. And rightly so.

Any "powers" in Nolans batman movies would utterly destroy them.

[homsar]

No suprise here. Pretty much broke every record. Highest Midnight Showing, first day showing and now opening weekend.
'Dark Knight' sets weekend record with $155.34M