The Dark Knight {Spoilers Abound}

Bass said:
To change the topic slightly... a bit before the movie came out (around the time the first of the TV spots were cropping up on youtube) a thought popped in my head and I thought I'd sit on it till the movie came out to make sure my hunch was right.

I think it was.

I love THE DARK KNIGHT. Terrifically entertaining. It's ever so slightly laboured but any time I notice I flaw I remind myself that it's ****ING AWESOME AND THAT I'M WRONG GODDAM IT. So what I suggest now is most certainly not an improvement or even a judgement on the movie, just an observation.

*ahem*

Wouldn't THE DARK KNIGHT have been an awesome STAR WARS movie?

Really. Think about it.

Imagine if instead of what we got for REVENGE OF THE SITH we got this: THE DARK SIDE. *pauses for booing at the awful name* Okay, bad name but look at it this way:

General Grievous is the Joker. He's off the ****ing chain. He's a monster trapped inside a robot's body. He's been trained by the Emperor and Count Dooku and neither can control him. He leads an assault on Coruscant and kidnaps Palpatine.

Anakin Skywalker is Harvey Dent. Padme is Rachel. Grievious, to continue the Sith, Grievous' (and Palpatine's plan) is to TURN Anakin into Vader. Chaos = The Dark Side of the force. Hell, Anakin even ends up being BURNT.

Batman is Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi. Grievous tries to exterminate the Jedi - the one true obstacle. He turns the republic AGAINST the Jedi. He demands they disarm, every day they don't a civilization will die. Starting tonight. He's a man of his word. The jedi become hated throughout the galaxy. People stop believing in the Force. And by the end of the movie, Anakin is Vader and the last two surviving Jedi live on backwater worlds while no one really gives the Jedi any more concern.

Are you feeling it? Do you feel how well this works?

I'm not trying to draw parallels or claim that TDK rips off STAR WARS or TDK would've been better if it was STAR WARS or any of that nonsense. I'm just pointing out that the structure, the spine of TDK also happens to work really well in STAR WARS.

Isn't that fun?
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really you could do that with any story with a tragic villain
 
Gemini said:
really you could do that with any story with a tragic villain
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Yeah. It's a pretty classic story structure. And I think that's why it would really work well for Star Wars. The original trilogy was the hero's journey. Then they built up Darth Vader's story, and when they got around to doing the prequel, we just learned that Lucas really didn't have a story to tell. It would have worked well exactly because it would be archetypal: a nuanced inversion of the hero's journey.
 
Zombipanda said:
Yeah. It's a pretty classic story structure. And I think that's why it would really work well for Star Wars. The original trilogy was the hero's journey. Then they built up Darth Vader's story, and when they got around to doing the prequel, we just learned that Lucas really didn't have a story to tell. It would have worked well exactly because it would be archetypal: a nuanced inversion of the hero's journey.
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George Lucas still dreams of washing Joseph Campbell's feet when he swims through his gazillions of dollars Uncle Scrooge McDuck-style. This dream is only interrupted by terrible, half-assed ideas at reviving his worthy earlier works.
 
DIrishB said:
George Lucas still dreams of washing Joseph Campbell's feet when he swims through his gazillions of dollars Uncle Scrooge McDuck-style. This dream is only interrupted by terrible, half-assed ideas at reviving his worthy earlier works.
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Ouch. Even Crystal Skull doesn't give him a little cred back?
 
Joe Kalicki said:
Ouch. Even Crystal Skull doesn't give him a little cred back?
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He's actually now retroactively losing credibility.

I found this on Wikipedia:

Steven Spielberg on Raiders said:
Spielberg and Lucas disagreed on the character: although Lucas saw him as a Bondian playboy, Spielberg and Kasdan felt the professor and adventurer elements of the character made him complex enough. Spielberg had darker visions of Jones, interpreting him as an alcoholic similar to Humphrey Bogart's character Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. This characterization fell away during the later drafts.[8] Spielberg also initially conceived of Toht as having a robotic arm, which Lucas rejected as falling into science-fiction. Comic book artist Jim Steranko was also commissioned to produce original illustrations for pre-production, which heavily influenced Spielberg's decisions in both the look of the film and the character of Indiana Jones himself.[12]
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Joe Kalicki said:
Ouch. Even Crystal Skull doesn't give him a little cred back?
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I was referring more to the Prequels. Crystal Skull was fun, and I was far more forgiving of it than most people who've followed Lucas career (ie, Star Wars fans). The Prequels were a big let down, though. The third one wasn't bad, but in comparison to the originals is still a pale comparison.

I think my biggest complaint about George Lucas is he's a bull-headed, stubborn idiot about his properties to a large degree. He created two of the seminal characters and films franchises of the past century, made billions, then decided to re-mine those properties to make more billions. That wouldn't be so bad, except in doing so, he forever tarnished the images of them.

We didn't need CGI ants in Crystal Skull. We didn't need the overkill amount of CGI in the Prequels. And we needed a better story and characterization in both. Apparently sometime in the 80's or 90's, Lucas lost all drive or ability to create a worthwhile movie. And instead of listening to or taking the advice of his peers and the fans who made him rich, he pig-headedly forged ahead with his juvenile approach to film-making for the Prequels (and to a large degree, Crystal Skull). I know he created these "worlds" and should have final say, but his final say is just so...wrong. This guy has forgotten his characters and how to get them to connect to the audience. His focus is more on special effects and his production companies, not film making. Which is fine, but I wish he'd realize that himself and leave the film making aspect to the people who know what they're doing. The same goes for writing.

Seriously, Lawrence Kasdan should've been hired to write Crystal Skull. He proved he wrote the character and his adventures the best with Raiders of the Lost Ark and he also did a kick-*** job on Empire Strikes Back...less impressive in Return of the Jedi, but still a worthy effort. Instead of finding suitable talent to create a suitable film, he's maintained a strangehold on his properties which in my opinion has only served to weaken them.

Lucas should stick with the special effects and digital film experimentation he seems to love so much. He's obviously geared more toward the technical aspect of the process now than he is to the creative process.

This leads me to my conclusion that sometime during the 90's, George Lucas was replaced by a Terminator, and is in the process of technologically and financially progressing Skynet to activation.
 
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DIrishB said:
I was referring more to the Prequels. Crystal Skull was fun, and I was far more forgiving of it than most people who've followed Lucas career (ie, Star Wars fans). The Prequels were a big let down, though. The third one wasn't bad, but in comparison to the originals is still a pale comparison.

I think my biggest complaint about George Lucas is he's a bull-headed, stubborn idiot about his properties to a large degree. He created two of the seminal characters and films franchises of the past century, made billions, then decided to re-mine those properties to make more billions. That wouldn't be so bad, except in doing so, he forever tarnished the images of them.

We didn't need CGI ants in Crystal Skull. We didn't need the overkill amount of CGI in the Prequels. And we needed a better story and characterization in both. Apparently sometime in the 80's or 90's, Lucas lost all drive or ability to create a worthwhile movie. And instead of listening to or taking the advice of his peers and the fans who made him rich, he pig-headedly forged ahead with his juvenile approach to film-making for the Prequels (and to a large degree, Crystal Skull). I know he created these "worlds" and should have final say, but his final say is just so...wrong. This guy has forgotten his characters and how to get them to connect to the audience. His focus is more on special effects and his production companies, not film making. Which is fine, but I wish he'd realize that himself and leave the film making aspect to the people who know what they're doing. The same goes for writing.

Seriously, Lawrence Kasdan should've been hired to write Crystal Skull. He proved he wrote the character and his adventures the best with Raiders of the Lost Ark and he also did a kick-*** job on Empire Strikes Back...less impressive in Return of the Jedi, but still a worthy effort. Instead of finding suitable talent to create a suitable film, he's maintained a strangehold on his properties which in my opinion has only served to weaken them.

Lucas should stick with the special effects and digital film experimentation he seems to love so much. He's obviously geared more toward the technical aspect of the process now than he is to the creative process.

This leads me to my conclusion that sometime during the 90's, George Lucas was replaced by a Terminator, and is in the process of technologically and financially progressing Skynet to activation.
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I agree with every single thing said here. There was some retrospective Star Wars exhibit at some museum in california a few years after the special editions of the original trilogy came out, and they wanted to screen the original, untouched versions as part of the exhibit. Lucas wouldn't let them.
 
DIrishB said:
I was referring more to the Prequels. Crystal Skull was fun, and I was far more forgiving of it than most people who've followed Lucas career (ie, Star Wars fans). The Prequels were a big let down, though. The third one wasn't bad, but in comparison to the originals is still a pale comparison.

I think my biggest complaint about George Lucas is he's a bull-headed, stubborn idiot about his properties to a large degree. He created two of the seminal characters and films franchises of the past century, made billions, then decided to re-mine those properties to make more billions. That wouldn't be so bad, except in doing so, he forever tarnished the images of them.

We didn't need CGI ants in Crystal Skull. We didn't need the overkill amount of CGI in the Prequels. And we needed a better story and characterization in both. Apparently sometime in the 80's or 90's, Lucas lost all drive or ability to create a worthwhile movie. And instead of listening to or taking the advice of his peers and the fans who made him rich, he pig-headedly forged ahead with his juvenile approach to film-making for the Prequels (and to a large degree, Crystal Skull). I know he created these "worlds" and should have final say, but his final say is just so...wrong. This guy has forgotten his characters and how to get them to connect to the audience. His focus is more on special effects and his production companies, not film making. Which is fine, but I wish he'd realize that himself and leave the film making aspect to the people who know what they're doing. The same goes for writing.

Seriously, Lawrence Kasdan should've been hired to write Crystal Skull. He proved he wrote the character and his adventures the best with Raiders of the Lost Ark and he also did a kick-*** job on Empire Strikes Back...less impressive in Return of the Jedi, but still a worthy effort. Instead of finding suitable talent to create a suitable film, he's maintained a strangehold on his properties which in my opinion has only served to weaken them.

Lucas should stick with the special effects and digital film experimentation he seems to love so much. He's obviously geared more toward the technical aspect of the process now than he is to the creative process.

This leads me to my conclusion that sometime during the 90's, George Lucas was replaced by a Terminator, and is in the process of technologically and financially progressing Skynet to activation.
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You're my hero [shedding tears]
 
Well TDK is now the 8th highest grossing film of all time with $394,887,000 as of Sunday. It is expected to break $400 mill today after 18 days and take the record for fastest to $400 mil. The previous film to hold said record was Shrek 2, who managed it in 43 days, so TDK will have obtained the record 2 1/2 times faster.
 
[holding a knife inside Gamble's mouth] Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was....a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. Turns to me and he says "Why so serious?" Comes at me with the knife,"Why so serious?" He sticks the blade in my mouth. "Lets put a smile on that face!" And..... Why so serious?




You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got them? Come here. Hey, look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful; like you. Who tells me, I worry too much. Who tells me, I ought to smile more. Who gambles, and gets in deep with sharks. One day they carve her face. We have no money for surgeries. She can't take it! I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars. So I stick a razor in my mouth and do this... to myself. And you know what? She can't stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling!
 
The other day, I picked up a pencil and asked my cousin if he wanted "to see a magic trick". Then he asked me "why so serious?" And then there was lols.
 
I am Guijllons, and I have such bad taste because I apparently don't enjoy films that are nearly 3 hours long and have only approximately 15 minutes of engaging dialogue. I forgive Super-hero movies a lot, an awful lot, but if a movie is going to be so damned certain of itself I expect it to deliver in spades, it didn't.

I felt that Batman Begins was ultimately pointless and while this certainly had more momentum it took the film until the point that The Joker was captured before it got close to making one. (breathe)

Yeah, and the actiony stuff was a bit lacklustre too.

Probably work better on DVD.
 
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Guijllons said:
I am Guijllons,
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Nice to meet you. I'm McCheese.
and I have such bad taste because I apparently don't enjoy films that are nearly 3 hours long and have only approximately 15 minutes of engaging dialogue.
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I completely disagree with this assessment, but I really don't want to get into an argument about what constitutes "engaging dialogue" with you so I'll pass on this.
I forgive Super-hero movies a lot, an awful lot, but if a movie is going to be so damned certain of itself I expect it to deliver in spades, it didn't.
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Wait a minute, is this the "it insists upon itself" argument?
 
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