I realize that this may be a dead thread now, but I thought I'd mix in my own two cents, since at this point most of us have already seen the movie. And if some of the regular readers of the board haven't seen it yet, they probably won't mind some of the plot being given away at this point, or else they probably would've made more of an effort to go see it by now.
At any rate, this movie, along with Batman Begins, trumps the Tim Burton series of Batman. And the most important reason why I believe this is true, is said very well by Derek in this quote.
But the big flaw of Burton's Batman - the one that the film will never be able to escape - is that it kills the Joker. This mistake is it's biggest blunder. It highlights a disconnect from the Batman legacy and reveals the vanity of the filmmakers. It was, in my opinion, a selfish decision.
Indeed, killing off the Joker was a selfish act, and though recurring villains aren't a popular theme in movies, it doesn't change the "disconnect" shown between the Batman that we've always known from the comics to the one that we see for the first time on the big screen. Derek's opinion on this matter also reminded me of the my favorite line in Dark Knight, quoted by Jester (Sorry, I don't know who you really are, so I'm referring to you by your BG handle)
Specifically I just ate up the part where the joker refers to himself as "an unstoppable force meeting a immovable object". Something about that symbolism just hit the mark for me, it just seemed to embody the whole movie.
The moment I heard the Joker say those words to Batman, it had finally hit me. Hard. Batman was never, and will never be a killer. That was and has always been his motif; a motif that Burton truly forgot when he directed the first Batman film. And to add to Jesters' comment about it "embodying" the whole movie, the line tells the audience that just because the villain doesn't die in the end of the movie, it doesn't mean that the hero doesn't win.
All in all, I believe it was a very well done movie, with enough story mixed with plenty of action to keep the audience at the edge of their seats. I would be remiss if I didn't say that I would've looked very forward to seeing Heath Ledger returning as the Joker.
Granted, this is purely semantic, but I do firmly believe Ledger played the Joker better than Jack Nicholson did. As Jonathan had put it, Jack's manic interpretation of the Joker left us all with the imagery of how we all thought the Joker to be; maniacal, sick, twisted, high pitched laughter, and childish (in the adult like way). Dating back even further to when Cesar Romero played the Joker during the TV series, this was the only image the audience had to interpret what the "real life" Joker would be.
And then comes Ledger's Joker; soft spoken, violently diplomatic, and above all else, a criminal mastermind. He knew how to provoke Batman in every shape and form, and just when things started turning out well for Batman, the tables flipped immediately the other way. Not to say that Nicholson's Joker didn't provoke Batman, but his excuse was simply "You made do it". IMO, this a lame excuse of revenge to go after someone, not to mention unoriginal. However, in the Dark Knight, noone made Ledger's Joker do anything. He did those things to Batman because he thought Batman was "just too much fun".
He managed to manipulate several situations into causing Batman to choose between the lives and well being of innocent bystanders, and those Batman cared for personally (ie - choosing who to save between Harvey and Rachel, and the situation with the boats at the end). Joker pushed him to the point where he lost the person he cared for most,
AND STILL, Batman would not bring himself to kill the Joker in the end. Thus putting more emphasis on the Jokers expression of "an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object". As the Joker said, Batman truly is "incorruptible", which is probably the biggest difference between Chris Nolan's Batman, and Tim Burton's Batman.
In closing, I'll quote another line from the movie, which I firmly believe supports my opinion of Ledger being the better Joker. I believe it's this line, along with a few others throughout the movie, that makes Ledger, not necessarily a better Joker, but a more convincing Joker. Well written scripts aside, it's lines like these that show just how twisted, I think, the Joker should be portrayed.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
Joker, talking to Det. Stephens:
"Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the... little... emotions. In... you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?"
