The Dark Knight

[Grames]

You wonder how they can possibly sell tickets to people who haven't read every Batman comic book ever published. Amazing.

Literary premises, the necessary background to understand the story, are repeated with every iteration.

[D'kian]

Literary premises, the necessary background to understand the story, are repeated with every iteration.

Sorry, no. In this particular adaptation that particular premise was missing.

[Nyronus]

To clarify D'kian, the weakness of the masses of Gotham is a premise for the Batman story overall. In the beginning of Dark Knight, it was stated that things were getting better. With the appearance of the Joker though, a lot of Batman's effort's were being eroded, and if Dent were revealed to have gone mad, it would all be for naught. A huge part of these movies is the nature of Symbols. Batman is a symbol for the secret courage of Gotham, while Dent became a symbol of hope. The Joker is in turn a symbol of utter anarchy and destruction. He is Dent's Anti-thesis. If the Joker could courrupt Dent, could turn Dent into himself, he would have taken the hope of Gotham and destroyed it. He would have done more than erase all of Batman's work, he would have sent Gotham into a lower state than when Falcone ran it. Batman, instead of letting that happen, chose to lose some of his status as a symbol to the people, in order to save Gotham's "soul" as it were, but, as hinted by the kid, I think there will always be people who believe in Batman. In what he represents.

Essentially, the scene at the press conference, which is what I assume your referencing when you speak of Gotham's people turning against Batman so easily, they do so out of fear. Essentially, the Joker has all of Gotham in a hostage situation. He has a gun to each of their heads, and as observed by Rand, people under force cannot think clearly and can only do what the man on the other end of the gun wants them to do. They turned on Batman out of fear, because they feared the Joker and saw Batman's demise as the only clear way to safety. They weren't thinking straight. The only person who was, was Dent, and that was because he understood the concept of the sanction of the victim. He wouldn't give into the Joker unless bodily forced, at least until his mind snapped.

As to the ending; I understood what Batman did and in all honesty I cried the second time round. Semantics aside, the only thing that really bugged me about the ending was that, well... Batman didn't really think things through. His solution was a good one... there were just others. They could tell the truth, not just the blatant facts, but the truth, and that is that the man who killed those five people was not really Dent anymore, and that to think of him as such was not only fallacious but was to concede to the Joker. They also could have just passed the killings off on the Joker. Granted, the latter might not work as well knowing the Joker's love of flair. It just seemed like Batman came up with the idea and did not think things through.

Eh, whatever. It was a good movie. For some reason, I liked it a lot better the second time.

[Grames]

I will explain what a literary premise is, and examine the literary premises behind several superhero characters. Batman is singled out for analysis, and contrasted with Ironman.

In general, a premise is a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn. In literature, a literary premise is idea of the story's setup and the identities of the major characters. The premise is distinguished from the plot, which is what happens, and the theme, which is the abstract meaning illustrated by the characters in their actions and fates. In episodic genre fiction (a comic book series, an action movie franchise) the same literary premises are recycled into new plots and potentially new themes.

The premise of Superman is that he has incredible powers and is practically indestructible because he comes from another planet, but his true greatness is his moral code imparted to him by his adoptive parents in Kansas who raised him from an infant. The premise of Spiderman is that college age young man is bitten by a radioactive spider causing him to have certain spider-like superpowers; he then struggles inwardy and outwardly with the responsibilities such power imparts. Various X-men characters are born with mutations granting specific, mixed-blessing super powers which isolate the characters from society. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, a fabulously wealthy but otherwise ordinary man who secretly chooses to prowl Gotham City dressed up as a bat, terrifying and beating up criminals, in order to save a city on the verge of hopeless resignation to corruption and chaos.

The literary premise of the Batman is unique in several ways. All of the other characters described above have superpowers that are birthrights or the product of accidents, but Batman chooses to put on his Batsuit. It is crucial that Bruce Wayne keep his Batman identity a secret because it protects his immediate circle from retribution, gives him freedom to leverage his wealth for Batgear, and keeps the cops and tort lawyers off his back. Gotham City uniquely justifies the existence of Batman. In an ordinary city with a more law and order Batman would not be needed; his personal childhood trauma is no justification for vigilantism and if he insisted on suiting up anyway the character would be narcissistic. But in Gotham, where so many citizens and even policemen are corrupt or cowardly but not irredeemably so, Batman makes the difference between a city with or without hope for justice and morality.

Of the superheroes described above, Batman stands out as the most consistently Romantic. Bruce Wayne chooses of his own volition to create and become the Batman character. Ironman is also a self-made character. Ironman is genius Tony Stark, a wealthy industrialist and arms manufacturer who's integrity is offended when he discovers his company's products and his life's work are sold around the world to good and evil men alike; the suit is the means and symbol of his freedom from the system which had duped him. In so far as Ironman is all about Tony Stark, the scope of its theme parallel's The Fountainhead. To the extent that The Dark Knight is about Batman's relationship to society, it is as ambitious as Atlas Shrugged.

[D'kian]

I will explain what a literary premise is,

I know all about literary premises.

Now I'll tell you what an adaptaion is:

An author takes a literary work and picks, chooses and adds what he needs to adapt the original work into what he wants. He can keep all the original premises or none. He can even change the literary premise of a work withuot meaning to.

Suppose someone made a movie adaptation of "The Fountainhead" in which Keating is the hero and Toohey is his kindly mentor, while Roark cannot accept his humble role in supporting the great man, Dominique keeps coming between Toohey and Katherine, and Wynand uses Roark to bring Keating and Toohey down. Would that still conform to the premise that the individual mind is the wellspring of creativity and achievement?

Well, in "Batman Begins" the premise is as follows:

bruce Waybe's father has poured his heart and sould, and some of his wealth, into making Gotham a great city. Young Waybe sees his parents taken from him by criminals, who then proceed to destroy his father's achievemtns in Gotham (with help from a corrupt police force, I admit). He ultimately sets out to remove the criminals as Batman because that's what he can do. This carries over nicely to Dark Knight, complete with Batman's desire to hang up his cape and resume his life where crime interrupted it. And what was in the comic books by Kane and others is not relevant to the movies.

[Grames]

I know all about literary premises.

Now I'll tell you what an adaptaion is:

An author takes a literary work and picks, chooses and adds what he needs to adapt the original work into what he wants. He can keep all the original premises or none. He can even change the literary premise of a work withuot meaning to.

Changing the premise breaks continuity for the audience, in that the new work will not be about the same thing as the earlier work. Recycling the premise was the entire point, it saves time to get on with the new story. A change of the premise is a mark of incompetence.

Suppose someone made a movie adaptation of "The Fountainhead" in which Keating is the hero and Toohey is his kindly mentor, while Roark cannot accept his humble role in supporting the great man, Dominique keeps coming between Toohey and Katherine, and Wynand uses Roark to bring Keating and Toohey down. Would that still conform to the premise that the individual mind is the wellspring of creativity and achievement?

And here you demonstrate that you still do not understand what a literary premise is, or even how to read. The "individual mind as the wellspring of creativity and achievement" is the theme, not the premise. The premise of the Fountainhead is "two young architects begin their careers at the same time from the same school, but have radically different careers because one is fiercely independent and creative with a true passion for architecture, while the other is a well-connected social climber with no talent who passes other's work off as his own to get by.

Well, in "Batman Begins" the premise is as follows:

bruce Waybe's father has poured his heart and sould, and some of his wealth, into making Gotham a great city. Young Waybe sees his parents taken from him by criminals, who then proceed to destroy his father's achievemtns in Gotham (with help from a corrupt police force, I admit). He ultimately sets out to remove the criminals as Batman because that's what he can do. This carries over nicely to Dark Knight, complete with Batman's desire to hang up his cape and resume his life where crime interrupted it. And what was in the comic books by Kane and others is not relevant to the movies.

And here again you mix in too much of the plot with the premise. And the final refutation of your last sentence and this entire post, is that the single biggest fundamental reason this movie is so much better than any previous incarnation is precisely its fidelity to the original premise of the source material.

[D'kian]

Changing the premise breaks continuity for the audience, in that the new work will not be about the same thing as the earlier work. Recycling the premise was the entire point, it saves time to get on with the new story. A change of the premise is a mark of incompetence.

And of course Hollywood would never dream of making any changes to any premise, nor would it ever compromise a work of art. Then you wake up.

The premise of the Fountainhead is "two young architects begin their careers at the same time from the same school, but have radically different careers because one is fiercely independent and creative with a true passion for architecture, while the other is a well-connected social climber with no talent who passes other's work off as his own to get by.

And you accuse me of using too much of the plot?

Oh, well. That'll teach me to take a fan boy seriously.

[Benpercent]

I just saw it today after viewing some of the recommendations on the first page of this thread. Having never really enjoyed Batman before (and thus going into the theatre with little expectations), I am extremely pleased. Heath Ledger played a phenomenal part of the Joker and, as others have said, did a damn good job showing the manifestation of evil. He alone made the movie for me.

I could care less for, however, the character that played Harvey Dent.

His motivation for becoming evil at the end is ridiculous, and his final fight anti-climatic. How did a twenty foot fall kill him? People have fallen that distance before and gotten away (improper terminology I know) with broken legs.

I didn't care much for Batman either.

His raspy whisper was cheesy to me, and he shows that he has psychologically integrated evil ethics, as they prevent him from doing some things that are morally permissible (such as killing the Joker).

And, funny, my interest in linguistics was fired up again, when

the joker fell from the tower laughing. I liked the sound of the laugh for some reason, but my ignorance of linguistics prevents me from saying exactly what about it I liked.

Overall I would recommend this movie, and perhaps the DVD, but for me I'd like to only see it twice.

[K-Mac]

People have fallen that distance before and gotten away...with broken legs.

People have fallen off the second rung of a step ladder or slipped in the bath tub and killed themselves. It just depends on how you fall and/or land. It really doesn't take much force to cause a life threatening injury, much less a head or neck injury.

I didn't care much for Batman either. His raspy whisper was cheesy to me...

I have to agree with ya there. What was up with that?!

Edited July 31, 2008 by K-Mac

[Moebius]

People have fallen off the second rung of a step ladder or slipped in the bath tub and killed themselves. It just depends on how you fall and/or land. It really doesn't take much force to cause a life threatening injury, much less a head or neck injury.

It's true. But wasn't there one scene where Batman fell through a penthouse window with Rachael in his arms and ended up perfectly fine? That was kind of a WTF moment for me.

[TheEgoist]

It's true. But wasn't there one scene where Batman fell through a penthouse window with Rachael in his arms and ended up perfectly fine? That was kind of a WTF moment for me.

He catches her before she hits the ground.

[Chops]

His raspy whisper was cheesy to me

You guys might appreciate this video then, if you found the raspy whisper amusing:

[RationalBiker]

He catches her before she hits the ground.

I think the reality check in that question would be; how did he manage to fall faster than her?

[TheEgoist]

I think the reality check in that question would be; how did he manage to fall faster than her?

The Batsuit has plenty of interesting gadgets. Sheesh, by this didn't he already do that whole Hong Kong scene? That was pretty damn unrealistic.

[Moebius]

He catches her before she hits the ground.

Yeah but what I meant was he jumped out of the penthouse of a high rise and -absorbing the weight of two people- he crash landed on a car and was completely fine afterwards.

But then later on he fell with Harvey Dent off of a twenty foot drop and blacked out.

[Grames]

Yeah but what I meant was he jumped out of the penthouse of a high rise and -absorbing the weight of two people- he crash landed on a car and was completely fine afterwards.

But then later on he fell with Harvey Dent off of a twenty foot drop and blacked out.

There was time to partially deploy the cape during the long fall, slowing them down. The shorter fall was head first.

[D'kian]

He catches her before she hits the ground.

Well, in cartoon physics it's the ground that kills you. Apparently this is true also in superhero physics. To boot:

Superheros can manipulate gravitational pull at need and fall faster, or slower, than other bodies around them.

Contrary to common belief, superheros are born with super-powers. This is what allows them to gain extraordinary powers when exposed to radioactive storms, bites by radioactive spiders, inhalation of radioactive gasses, different visible light spectra, massive doeses of gamma rays, etc. It is yet to be determined if a given hero's powers are switched on by these phenomena, or whether their common basic superpower is to render that would otherwise kill a mere mortal into an incredibly useful trait.

All supervillains are afflicted with LAS (Loquacious Assus Syndrome). This affliction compels its victims to explain in detail each and every master plan to the first immobilized superhero available. It is believed to be caused by a defective, dominant gene in the 24th chromosome, although competing theories claim it is caused by a mutant virus once exposed to Green Lantern radiation. If the latter be so, there is no explanation why it doesn't affect other people, such as football coaches or military personnel.

The Kryptonian race is doomed to extinction for lack of a suitable mate for Superman (aka Clark Kent). For details consult Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Dr. Lawrence Niven.

Supervillians only die in the movies.

[aequalsa]

Yeah but what I meant was he jumped out of the penthouse of a high rise and -absorbing the weight of two people- he crash landed on a car and was completely fine afterwards.

But then later on he fell with Harvey Dent off of a twenty foot drop and blacked out.

Cars are softer to land on then pavement.

[aequalsa]

I think the reality check in that question would be; how did he manage to fall faster than her?

In free fall you can alter your drag with body positioning which slows you down and speeds you up. That said, It did not appear to me that there was enough distance for him to catch up significantly. Lucky it's a movie about comic book characters....

Anyway, I'm on the side of those who liked the film, largely because of how well the joker portrayed evil. I have always disliked the "pure evil" kind of bad guys who lack sufficient motivations, but this time they seemed to pull it off really well.

[Starling]

I'll answer the particular debate first, but we'll just be playing whack-a-mole until everyone understands what art is. Long post, so if you only read part of it, choose the blue paragraph.

Watch the movie again: he didn't catch up to her in the fall. She was hanging onto the roof, he jumped out to help her, they both fell at the same time. In the book Angels and Demons (which I don't recommend), they say that a square-foot of fabric can slow a human's fall by 40% or something like that. I'll try to find out if this is true. Assuming it is, Batman's cape was out, and it was much bigger than a square-foot. Get over it and try to actually enjoy the movie.

Different people notice different things. I was bothered by Batman tracing a fingerprint on a bullet. This makes no sense because a bullet is almost entirely inside its casing when put in the clip. Unless the shooter loaded his own ammunition, there couldn't have been a fingerprint like that. My boyfriend was annoyed that the supposedly made-in-China gun Dent takes from the wiseguy in court was obviously a Gloch.

We can do this all day with any movie, or book, or poem, or painting, etc. Art is a -selective- recreation of reality. The Dark Knight is romantic, not naturalistic. This reminds me of something I heard at the Cordair gallery (www.cordair.com): an Objectivist complained that in Brian Larsen's "How Far We've Come" the woman's hair would be messier in zero-gravity. Such a painting would be naturalistic, not romantic, and not in-line with Rand's Aesthetics.

In a live-action movie, the artwork consists of a series of pictures of (mostly) actual objects. Each object corresponds to something in reality, but in a symbolic, not literalistic, way. Chris Nolan used the particular gun in the courtroom because it is universally recognizable as a semi-automatic pistol. In the real world, yes, it is and must be a Gloch, but in the Chris Nolan universe it is whatever he (or his character, Harvey Dent) says it is. That doesn't mean he can call it a chicken, but the brand or manufacturing country is up for grabs.

Batman always uses technology and cleverness to catch villains, and tracing the fingerprint showed that, even though as an investigation technique in the real world it would be virtually useless. Saving Rachel was a typical show of his strength, consistent with his other actions. Batman -does- have strength (morally, physically, and psychologically) beyond that of any other man in Chris Nolan's universe, so yes, of course, his actions often go beyond what you would expect to see in reality. That's what makes him the hero, and a superhero besides.

But reality is the basis for Batman, moreso than any other superhero, in fact. Batman's armor has its limits. Even in the first movie, Lucius Fox tells him that it can stop "anything but a straight-shot." In The Dark Knight, Batman weakens his armor to the point where it won't even stop knives in some places. When Two-Face shoots him, Batman goes down. He summons enough strength to knock Two-Face over to save Gordon, catches Gordon's son, lifts the kid up to his father, then runs out of strength and loses his grip and falls. On the way down, he hits several beams, which both slow his fall to prevent his death and weaken him more. When he hits the ground, he doesn't move for a bit. Perhaps he is unconscious, perhaps he's just crippled by pain. Perhaps he was unconscious before the fall, afterall, he was shot and still performed several enormous feats of strength, never mind everything else he had been doing that day (bitten by dogs and beaten with a crowbar to name two). Being unconscious actually makes it more likely to survive, as does wearing bodyarmor, which Two-Face was not. Further, Two-Face did not hit anything on the way down to slow his fall, he was thrown too far from the structure (you can tell by his location on the ground relative to Batman and the building). He was also already severely injured by his burns, and he also clearly didn't care if he (or anyone else) lived or died. Never ignore the importance of the will to live in surviving an accident.

Nitpicking plot points is -not- thinking about art. Better to ask: what standards does the artist have for his universe? what do those standards tell you about his view of reality (metaphysical value-judgments)? Example: The artist identifies one man as strong and another as weak. Both fall 20ft. The weak man survives. What is the artist saying? Only the context can tell you. He could be saying that life is all chance and ability doesn't matter. It could be that the weak man did something clever to protect himself, in which case the metaphysical value-judgment is that reason is more valuable to man than physical strength, even in physical situations. It could be that the weak man was a priest and God saved him, or a wizard using magic, or the strong man had wronged the weak man and "cosmic justice" decided who lived and who died, or any number of things. In proper art, however, the meaning will -not- be that the artist was a physicist who calculated angles and weights and velocities to determine the outcome.

No insult to those honestly trying to evaluate this work of art, but manufacturing irrelevancies like the "unrealisticness" of the falls is purely destructive. If you find yourself fixated on such things, check your premises: it smells a lot like cynicism.

[Grames]

I'll answer the particular debate first, but we'll just be playing whack-a-mole until everyone understands what art is. Long post, so if you only read part of it, choose the blue paragraph.

Good post, Starling. Rand specifically praised artworks and artists philosopically much worse off than we see in The Dark Knight (Dostoevsky and others). She did so because they were Romantic as she defined the term, whatever their other flaws. Naturalism and cynicism do go together.

[Joel Marquez]

Yeah, I stopped reading Atlas Shrugged when I got to the part with the motor that ran on static electricity. Utterly ludicrous.

And don't get me started on alloys that gain tensile strength -and- become less expensive by adding copper.

Are you kidding me? Who reads this crap?

Edited August 2, 2008 by softwareNerd
Sarcasm Alert!

[RationalBiker]

No insult to those honestly trying to evaluate this work of art, but manufacturing irrelevancies like the "unrealisticness" of the falls is purely destructive. If you find yourself fixated on such things, check your premises: it smells a lot like cynicism.

I'm not sure if you are addressing my comment by this statement about "destructive", but if you are, I disagree (and my comment has absolutely zilch to do with cynicism). My comment should not be taken as some major criticism of the movie that makes it lose all of it's value. If you take my comments in total, I loved the movie. If I'm wrong about the falling part, and I intend to see it again anyway, so be it - I stand corrected. If I make a comment that you deem 'nitpicky', please feel free to ignore it.

That said, some aspects of adhering to reality (within the context of a given works 'universe') are necessary, even in works of art. Sure, there is a larger statement being made by the artist that is important, but little things like ignoring the rules of gravity can be quite distracting for a movie about a superhero who really is an exceptional man, but one without superhuman powers. Is Gotham City on Earth or not? Are taking about human beings or beings that really closely resemble us but aren't really us? That statement could entirely lose it's value if we aren't talking about human beings, virtuous or otherwise. The more a movie like that would stray from some sense of realism, the more I would think "just another action movie" (like Arnie's 'Commando' among many) rather than "a smart action movie with a worthwhile statement to make."

Aequalsa is certainly correct in pointing out that people can fall at different rates of speed, at least for some distance in different positions. Whether that applied to the scene or not I'm not sure.

[Chops]

Great Post, Starling.

[Soth]

I have a question. In the part of the movie where the joker rigged both ships with explosives. Why didn't anyone on either ship pressed the trigger?

Let's ignore for a moment the fact the joker was probably being dishonest, and it wouldn't surprise me if either switch activated both ships' explosives thus resulting in the person activating the switch actually killing everyone and suiciding alongside, let's put this aside as the passangers had no way of knowing that.

If I were on one of the ships, and the options presented to me would be: 1) Both ships exploding, resulting in my death. 2) Just the other ship exploding, I would've chosen option 2 and blown up the other ship.

The joker tells us he's done it to see how much the city of Gotham is moraly corrupt. But I see no moral corruption in this choice. The option was everyone die, vs only half die. Of course only half is the winner.

Even if the situation was different, and no matter what just 1 of the ships would explode, and for the sake of arguement let's assume one ship has to be destroyed and that there is no escape (Batman can't save you), I would argue that every person of board of the two ships would be moral by blowing up the other ship thus perserving his life.

Do you disagree?

p.s. I'll just mention I found the citizens of Gotham city absolutely appauling in their moral values in another scene. The one where they call out for Batman to turn himself in as soon as the first unknown terrorist asks them to. I cringed at the moral decay of the city at that point, and wondered why should Batman act in their favour at all.