The Dark Knight - Detailed Analysis & Review

Nerd heaven

The Dark Knight has a reputation for being one of the great superhero movies, and it is completely deserved. Revisiting this movie for the first time after my initial viewing I was blown away by the writing. This is a masterpiece of thematic story-telling. With fantastic performances, especially from Heath Ledger as The Joker. So let's see what Batman is up to this time as we discuss The Dark Knight.

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Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings

The author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 93 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the movie The Dark Knight

The description on IMDB reads

When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.

The screenplay was written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan (who are brothers)

With story by Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer

It was directed by Christopher Nolan

And it was first released on the 14th of July 2008

In 2008 I was raising a very young family. I had just bought my first house or was shortly about to. I wasn’t made of money. Consequently, instead of buying this movie on DVD as I did with Batman Begins, I hired it from the local video rental place because that was cheaper. And forget the cinema. I didn’t go to the cinema for years when my kids were little. So I’ve only ever seen this movie once.

I remember continuing to enjoy the serious tone, but it didn’t have that origin backstory element that I loved so much in the first movie.

So I was really interested to see how I’d react to a rewatch after all these years.

The movie has a very silent beginning. So much so I had to keep checking that the sound was working on my computer.

We know from the ending scene of Batman Begins that this movie would introduce The Joker as its villain. The Joker is well known as the most famous, most iconic Batman villain. And this in large part thanks to the Adam West TV show, I believe.

I think it was smart to use lesser-known villains in the first movie, like Falcone, Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul and Even Victor Zzazz. It expanded the world for those not familiar with the comics and gave Batman room to really shine as he came into his own.

But this was the time to introduce his famous arch-nemesis.

When we first see a criminal wearing a clown mask our natural inclination is to think, this has got to be the joker, or someone who works for him, right?

Turns out these guys are working for him, but it’s not a close association. He planned this heist, and he wants a cut.

He calls himself The Joker because he wears makeup to scare people, like war paint. We’ll come back to this.

It’s a shock when one robber is killed by another as soon as he’s finished his work on the security system. And it would seem to make sense at first. One less person to split the money with, and these are hardly moral people. Unless something goes wrong and you need that guy again, or if you get a bad reputation for killing your team members and nobody wants to join your crew for future endeavours.

Turns out, this is a mob bank. One of the workers has a shotgun. I have to admit, the idea of the mob owning a bank is a concept I’m struggling to get my head around.

Looks like none of these crooks really know the full plan. Half of them are instructed to kill the other half.

The mob guy makes a good point. If you work for someone like the joker, who orders his own people dead, he’ll only do the same to you.

Except the guy he’s talking to ends up being the joker.

In the end, he doesn’t have to share the money with anyone. But who’s gonna want to work with him?

So taking a more active role than it appeared.

He definitely has a flair for the dramatic in the way he kills people.

Using the school bus as a getaway vehicle to blend in with all the other school buses is clever, but it would require expert timing, and wouldn’t the back of his bus be banged up from crashing through the wall?

I was surprised to see someone wearing the scarecrow mask from the last movie.

It’s not surprising, however, that there would be a copycat batman or two. But this guy doesn’t compare to the real thing.

And It seems it’s actually Doctor Crane himself. Has he escaped from jail? And why would he now be playing vigilante? That’s a bit weird.

There’s a story-telling reason to do this. The idea is you show the villain who was such a threat last time as being ineffectual compared to the new villain, thus emphasising how powerful and threatening the new villain is.

Except, Doctor Crane was never much of a threat to Batman. Ra’s al Ghul was the main threat.

The big difference, of course, between Batman and these fakes, is competence. He’s got the skills, the experience, and the equipment. They don’t.

Bruce has obviously affected some upgrades to the tumbler. It has some auto-drive features, which are not so unbelievable in 2022, but were still science fiction 2008.

Batman doesn’t always come when Gordon turns on the signal, because he’s busy. But Gordon likes to do it anyway, to remind people that Batman is out there.

That one scene when Alfred brings breakfast into an empty bedroom speaks volumes without a line of dialogue. Of course, the next scene has the dialogue which is almost redundant. Bruce has set himself up with a temporary batcave under a Wayne Enterprises facility while the mansion is being rebuilt. It’s a massive empty area with white ceiling. It looks somewhat unreal.

Alfred warns Bruce that he needs to know his limits. Bruce says Batman doesn’t have any, and Alfred points out that Bruce does. What’s going to happen on the day when he realises them.

And that’s a clear ominous warning about a coming theme in this movie.

And while Bruce likes to think that Batman has no limits, he clearly does, because even as a symbol, he’s portrayed by a human being. Batman is built on the flaws of that human.

We meet the exciting new DA. Harvey Dent.

And for those who haven’t picked up on it, we see him making decisions by flipping a coin.

Rachel is not only working for Dent, she is apparently dating him.

She gave Bruce a little sliver of hope that maybe they could be together someday when Gotham no longer needs Batman, but at the same time, it doesn’t seem that she’s willing to wait for him. I’m not saying that she should, but by dating someone else it makes her offer kinda hollow.

So now we have to talk about Katie Holmes. Because Rachel has mysteriously changed her face like a timelord.

Katie Holmes didn’t return for this movie. And we don’t know exactly why. We probably never will. We know that Christopher Nolan wanted her to return and was reportedly a bit upset that she didn’t. She was quite busy at the time and has said publicly that it was a decision that was right for her at that moment but would love to work with Nolan again someday.

I was disappointed when I learned that the character had been recast. I quite liked Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. The role went to Maggie Gyllenhaal.

And I have to say, having just re-watched this movie, she did a fantastic job.

It can’t be easy to come in and portray a character previously played by someone else, especially if you’re supposed to be in the same continuity as the previous. But Maggie made me believe.

And while I really liked Holmes in Batman Begins, I think I can say that Maggie Gyllenhaal gave a better performance in The Dark Night. She plays Rachel as a little older, a little wiser. And I really enjoyed what she did.

The new head of Falcone’s crime organisation, Maroni, who’s played by Eric Roberts, an actor I quite like, has apparently got a fall guy to admit to being in charge, much to the amusement of everyone in the audience. I’m sure that’s not what they’re called in a court case, but you know what I’m talking about.

This guy has smuggled a gun right into the courtroom, even up to the witness stand, which is a little hard to swallow, but at least this movie gives an explanation. It’s made of carbon fibre, which I’m guessing doesn’t set off metal detectors? Last movie, both Bruce and one of Falcone’s men got guns into the courtroom and that was never explained.

Dent comes across as very cocky, but also very capable.

He disarms the witness without a single hint of anxiety.

Gordon and Batman are trying to cripple the mob by depriving them of their money. They plan to raid the mob banks before the Joker and rob them. The Joker is a side-problem at present.

Bruce is falling asleep in board meetings because he’s out all night being Batman, but that doesn’t mean he’s neglecting the company. He’s keeping a tight eye on things, more so than appears. I like that. This is his father’s legacy, after all.

The rivalry between Bruce and Harvey over Rachel is kind of embarrassing to observe. I guess I can’t blame him. Bruce and Rachel are not together, but not by Bruce’s choice. Often in Superhero stories, you’ll have the hero tell his love interest that they can’t be together but then get all moody and belligerent when the woman pursues something with someone else. I believe Smallville did this once or twice. But you can’t have it both ways.

Anyway, nothing quite so angsty is going on here. Bruce would have Rachel in a second if she’d have him, and Harvey is in the way of that.

This is a point we’ll connect back to later when we talk about character goals.

As far as we know, Harvey has no beef with Bruce, but when another guy puffs out his chest at you in a passive-aggressive kinda way, you’re gonna puff back. That’s just how it works, right.

So there’s this mutual ribbing that’s going on during the conversation.

I mean, it was quite rude of Bruce to intrude on their date the way he does. But he doesn’t really care.

They begin debating the merits of Batman. Ironically, Harvey is in defence, and Bruce against.

I like how Bruce’s date isn’t just portrayed as a bimbo. She has considered opinions and she’s the one who brings up the topic.

Rachel points out the example of Cesar, who was appointed by the people to defend them but then never gave up his power.

Could the same end up being true of Batman?

Harvey’s answer is important. This is his thematic sentence.

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Let’s see how this particular theory plays out with our main characters throughout the story.

But Harvey thinks Batman doesn’t want to do this forever. He’s looking for someone to take up his mantle. Maybe even somebody like him.

And he’d be shocked to learn just how right he is about this.

Bruce is sold. He wants to throw his financial support behind Dent.

But he has his own ulterior motives.

What if Harvey Dent is the hero that can solve Gotham’s problems in a more ‘by the book’ kind of way? What if he could take over the mantle from Batman?

That would then leave Bruce free to pursue a relationship with Rachel - one she claims she’d be interested in once Batman is a thing of the past.

Ultimately, Batman is thinking more about his own personal wants and needs here than about what’s best for the city.

It’s hard to blame him. He’s an imperfect person who does have wants of his own. But we’ll have to see what he ultimately puts priority on when the time comes. That will determine what kind of man he is.

So surprise, Lau, the guy that Wayne Enterprises was thinking of doing business with, the guy that Bruce decided not to work with, is involved with the Gotham Mob. The Joker has stolen a few million dollars from them. But Maroni isn’t convinced that the Joker is the real problem. The cops are the bigger issue. They’re trying to seize the rest of their cash.

Lau hides the money for them so when Gordon gets in there, there’s nothing to find.

And that’s when the Joker barges into their little meeting.

This scene is the first introduction we really get to Heath Ledger’s Joker.

His first act is to kill one of the mob guys who tries to throw him out, using a pencil.

Now, this whole pencil in the eye stunt really disturbed me the first time I saw it, and it really stuck in my memory.

I remember cringing in revulsion. That wasn’t something I needed to see.

This time around, it didn’t affect me as much, possibly because I knew it was coming. That first time, when it happened, I really thought through the implications.

Really disturbing.

It’s clear to the Joker that the mob are afraid of Batman. Despite what they say, they’re not having their meetings in broad daylight because of Harvey Dent.

The Joker makes an offer. I’ll kill the Batman, but not for free. That’s why he’s here.

But can they take him seriously? He’s shown he’s clever. He’s shown he can pull off a heist. He’s demonstrated his competence and his boldness by stealing some of their money.

But does that mean he’s capable of killing Batman? That’s quite a different task than stealing money from a mob bank.

The outspoken gangster, Gambol, isn’t impressed and says he’s putting a price on the Joker’s head, but I think their new leader is seriously thinking about it all.

So let’s talk about this version of The Joker.

I see Heath Ledger as the definitive on-screen version of The Joker. I know a lot of people will point to Mark Hamill, but I’m just not really into a lot of animated stuff.

So to me, Ledger was the ultimate portrayal of what I traditionally thought of as The Joker.

His personality is creepy. He comes across as somewhat unhinged, but at the same time capable, and a worthy adversary for Batman.

The make-up is dishevelled and badly done, and he has big scars on his cheeks, extending into a sickening smile, covered crudely with lipstick. It gives a wonderfully creepy vibe that works wonderfully for me. If the makeup was applied better, it would lose all its power. Incidentally, that’s why I didn’t like Joaquim Phoenix's look for the Joker in the trailers, although when I watched the movie and understood the character’s backstory, I realised that it worked for that version of the character.

But some people took issue with the whole make-up idea. I know a friend of mine has talked at length about how he didn’t want a joker wearing makeup. He wanted a joke with chemical-bleached skin.

Now because I don’t have much of a comics history in my youth, I was simply unaware of this aspect of the character. I’m bingeing on DC comics now, but that didn’t help me in the past.

You see, I always thought The Joker wore makeup. My main previous exposures to the character were Ceasar Romero, who wore makeup right over his moustache, and Jack Nicholson.

As I explained last time, I completely misinterpreted what was going on in the 1989 Batman movie. I thought that Nicholson’s Joker wore makeup to cover his disfigurement from landing in the chemicals. It was only very recently that I learned that the natural skin tone was in fact the makeup, and the clown face was his real skin.

And I’m sorry, but I just find that kind of silly. Especially the hair. I can buy the idea of bleached skin from chemicals, but not if it just looks like white makeup. And green hair from landing in chemicals. No. That doesn’t work for me at all.

So to me, The Joker has always been, and probably always will be, a creepy guy who wears clown makeup.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t know any different before, and now that idea is solidified in me.

Anyway, it goes without saying that Heath Ledger’s performance in this movie is outstanding. He won an oscar for it. It’s just such a tragedy that he died before even receiving it.

So Dent and Gordon meet Batman on the rooftop. There’s a lot of blame going around for what happened, but what really matters is they need to get Lau back. He’s fled to Hong Kong. Harvey can get him to talk if Batman can get him back somehow.

Is it just me or are all the actors in this movie really young?

When Bruce goes to Lucious for help. The scene always plays like a Bond film, where 007 gets his latest gadgets from Q. But somehow, that works.

The Joker comes to see Gambol, but his method of arrival is suitably theatrical. He arrives in a body bag, pretending to have been killed.

And that’s when we hear his question for the first time.

“Do you want to know how I got these scars?”

It’s not the last time he’ll ask somebody that question, and each time, he’ll give a completely different story, each as dark and twisted as the last.

Of course, at this point in the movie, we don’t realise that, so we take the story about his wife-beating mother at face value. Ah, so that’s why The Joker is so messed up. But that’s too easy. Too trite. Does a tragic childhood justify the person The Joker is? It certainly doesn’t excuse it. Does it explain it? Plenty of people have had horrible childhoods like the story he tells, but they don’t grow up to be psychotic serial killers.

Ultimately, I think the reason the writers had him give all these conflicting stories is that they’re showing that no one incident really truly explains or justifies what he is. He’s just insane.

Normally, I don’t like it when explanations are not fully given, when stuff like this is left hanging as a mystery that’s never resolved. Often, it’s done badly so it leaves me feeling unsatisfied. But here, it works wonderfully. So I’m with it.

The Joker is slowly taking over the criminal underworld in Gotham. But he’s doing it in such a Joker way. He has Gambol and some other goons fight it out, to the death, for the privilege of joining his team.

This guy really is sick.

Fox has a clever way of getting into the interior of Lau’s building and planting another jamming device in there. I quite like seeing these two working in the field together.

This part of the movie really does feel like a spy thriller.

Batman usually confines himself to Gotham. I think this is the first time I’ve seen him operating in another country on screen.

The method of extracting Bruce and Lau from the building into the plane looks awesome, but man it would be terrifying.

It seems strange to me that Rachel - a lawyer for the DA’s office, is interrogating Lau, not a police officer. Is that normal in America? Because here, it’s the police who interview people. Then, when they think they have sufficient evidence, they charge the suspect. Then they appear in court. Although, interestingly, we don’t have District Attorneys, like in America. As far as I understand, it’s actually the police themselves that prosecute criminal cases. You hear the term police prosecutor.

Gordon makes mass arrests. Rachael and Dent have worked out some legal options where if you get a conviction on one, you can get a conviction on a bunch of their accomplices. I don’t fully understand, but it’s looking pretty nice for the good guys at the moment.

Until the Judge finds a playing card, a joker, amongst her papers.

The Joker makes a direct challenge to Batman by dumping the dead body, in Joker makeup, of one of the copycat batmen into the Mayor’s window.

The Joker wants Batman to step up and take off the mask. Every night he doesn't, people will die.

Despite the jokes and ribbing, Bruce is genuine when he says he believes in Harvey Dent. Yeah, he’s got his ulterior motives, but he genuinely believes Harvey is what the city needs, maybe even more than it news Batman. Gotham needs a hero with a face.

Bruce opens up to Rachel. He believes that day is coming very soon when Batman won’t be needed. And when that day comes, he’s asking her to be there for him.

The people The Joker plans to kill tonight are quite important. The judge and Commissioner Loeb are among them. Harvey Dent may be another. The Joker crashes Bruce’s fundraiser for Dent.

Rachel stands up to him and that’s when he tells his second scar story. This one is about a wife who was disfigured. He disfigured himself to be like her, and she left him.

When Batman shows up, The Joker throws Rachel out the window. Batman has to jump out, catch her, and reach the ground safely. His cape barely opens as he’s seconds from crashing into a car uncountable stories below.

This is even more unbelievable than the fall out the window in Batman Begins. It’s laughable to expect us to believe that Batman and Rachel are still alive. That’s a real problem for me.

Alfred seems to have a greater understanding of The Joker. This is not a man with a rational goal. He’s not after the things that most criminals are after. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

So how do you understand a man like that? How do you defeat him?

Batman has been called the world’s greatest detective. We get to see him doing a little detective work. Specifically, some forensic work, analysing gunshots into brick.

I really like how the movie acknowledges that somebody in Wayne Enterprises is going to notice their own tech from applied sciences being used out there by Batman. That’s only logical. But Lucious is quite capable of dealing with that.

What’s harder for me to swallow is that Bruce gets a fingerprint of the shooter off the hundreds of shards that were once a bullet.

The Joker’s next target is the mayor, who is giving a speech at Loeb’s funeral.

It’s interesting to see the Joker out of makeup as he pretends to be one of the cops giving a rifle salute.

Gordon has been shot, but we know he can’t die because he hasn’t become commissioner yet.

Still, they play it for real. And they portray the emotion of it very well.

Rachel is the next target.

Harvey needs someone he can trust, and Rachel suggests Bruce Wayne.

So, you know the trope, where the vigilante holds the crook out a window, threatening to drop them. We know they won’t. The crook knows they won’t. In this case, Batman has specifically chosen a height that won’t kill Maroni, so that he can make good on his threat when Maroni calls his bluff.

Maroni makes a good point. Batman has rules. The joker has no rules. Nobody is gonna cross The Joker for Batman. The only way to find him is to take off his mask and let the Joker come to him. Or he could just let more people die while he makes up his mind.

Harsh truth.

Dent is trying a different tactic. Putting a gun to the mobster’s head. But Maroni was right. This guy won’t talk.

Dent offers a toss of the coin. But is he really gonna kill the guy? I know he’s worried about Rachel being the next target, but is the DA really ready to take a life in cold blood?

Turns out, this guy is a paranoid schizophrenic. There’s not a lot Dent is gonna learn from him.

Batman has some words for Harvey. He is a legitimate voice standing against the crime in Gotham. Doing it by the book. That’s the first ray of light this city has seen in decades. What would happen if people saw their white knight holding a gun to a man’s head?

Bruce is convinced that the people need someone better than a vigilante in a bat mask. They need somebody working on the correct side of the law with his face uncovered. That’s something Batman can never be.

I love how all of this is building toward the conclusion of this movie. It’s like a tapestry where all the threads are coming together to make something greater. There really is some great writing in this one. It’s all very thematic.

Bruce is ready to pass on the torch. Right now. He’s going to unmask himself so nobody else dies on his behalf.

Dent considers giving up. Even Rachel isn’t convinced that this will keep The Joker from killing people. But it may flush him out and allow somebody to stop him.

I understand Bruce’s perspective. What choice does he have? He can’t just keep watching while people die. Is protecting his secret identity really more important than all those lives?

I think he’s making the only call he can under the circumstances.

Rachel admits she meant what she said to him at the end of Batman Begins. If he ends Batman, she’ll be with him.

But she believes that if Bruce turns himself in, they won’t let them be together.

“They” could refer to a lot of people. The Joker, any criminal with a grudge against Batman. The police.

Bruce is destroying any evidence that could lead back to Lucious or Rachel.

Today, Bruce has found out what Batman can’t do, but as predicted, Alfred doesn’t want to say “I told you so.”

At a press conference, Dent debates whether Batman should be turned in with the crowd. They all want his head, so he gives in. As Bruce begins to step forward, Dent falls on his sword. “I am the Batman,” he says.

Bruce hesitates.

He doesn’t turn himself in.

What should he do?

Rachel isn’t impressed.

Dent reveals how he makes his own luck - both sides of his coin are heads.

The Joker makes his move to capture Dent from the prison transport. But Batman makes his move as well, essentially proving that Dent is not Batman by appearing in the tumbler.

Action scenes with The Tumbler are always fun.

But sadly, it’s been damaged beyond immediate repair. So…..Bruce ejects in a motorbike.

This is a problem.

I can’t believe that the bridging vehicle was designed to come apart and partially transform into a motorbike. Clearly, Bruce and Lucious have made a lot of alterations.

But I just can’t buy that. I mean, the bike with the massive wheels looks cool and all, but this breaks the believability a bit too much for me.

This is no ordinary bike, though. It can do some really cool things.

Despite all he has done, Bruce still holds to his rule. He doesn’t kill The Joker.

Just when all hope looks gone, who should show up but Jim Gordon. Alive and well.

Now they have The Joker in custody.

Gordon says he couldn’t risk his family’s safety, which is why he went through this ruse. But he still put them through the heartbreak of thinking he was dead. And that’s pretty bad. And they haven’t even found out the truth yet. Gordon is on his way home to tell his wife he’s alive now. She gives him the slap that I think he deserves.

But in all the commission, one thing that I missed in my first watching all those years ago. The mayor names Gordon Commissioner. So he’s finally reached the position he’s known for.

They’ve found no Id on him. No idea what The Joker’s true identity is. His name.

How do you charge someone without knowing their name? It’s not like they can just call him “The Joker.”

But there’s some bad news. Dent didn’t make it home. So who has him?

Gordon lets Batman do the interrogation. This is where we see the beginning of the nemesis relationship. The Joker doesn’t want Batman dead. What would he do without Batman? Go back to knocking off mob bosses? The Joker needs a worthy adversary. Batman completes him.

The Joker tells Batman he’s going to have to break his one rule tonight - his rule against killing. And he’s already been considering it.

But it seems the Joker knows who Batman is, or at least, he knows there is a connection between Batman and Rachel.

Batman is going to have to choose between Dent and Rachel. One life or another.

The Joker tells Batman where each of them are.

Batman’s decision is made without even thinking. He’s going after Rachel.

The police will go for Dent.

It’s a sick setup. They’re both wired to bombs, but there’s a speakerphone between them, so they can talk to each other. Hear each other’s screams.

The Joker’s method of escaping is clever, but disturbing.

Rachel doesn’t want to live with Harvey, so he finally gives him the answer he’s been waiting for. The question is obvious. Her answer - yes.

So…seems she’s not willing to wait for Bruce after all. She’d already decided that, as we’ll learn from her letter. She’s convinced a day will never come when Bruce doesn’t need Batman.

And now comes the real tragedy of this whole thing.

Batman bursts into the location where he was told Rachel would be.

But it’s Harvey.

The Joker gave him the wrong addresses. He switched them.

So that by thinking he saved the one he chose, he’d actually be killing them.

Harvey is not happy that Batman came for him instead of Rachel - which of course he didn’t mean to do.

And Rachel has to calmly accept it. It’s that moment when you realise you’re about to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, so there’s no use struggling. But at least the one you love is safe.

And then it happens. The buildings explode. Harvey is saved, but Rachel is not.

Rachel is dead.

And Batman unknowingly killed her.

This is a heart-breaking tragic moment. It was a gutsy move. It was not normal, especially at the time, for a superhero to actually kill off the love interest like this.

That was dark.

Of course, I’m not against tragedy or darkness in stories. But ouch. This hurts. But sometimes stories are supposed to hurt. That’s what makes them powerful.

Before she died, Rachel gave Alred a letter for Bruce, telling him she’d decided not to wait for him. She was gonna marry Harvey Dent. Alfred ultimately decides to destroy this letter rather than give it to Bruce.

I think he reasons that the rejection on top of the death is just another level of grief he doesn’t need. He’ll at least let Bruce keep the hope that Rachel was going to be with him.

It’s hard to say which would be more painful, knowing that you could have been with her if only she’d survived, or knowing that no matter what, you’d never have been able to be with her.

Harvey’s face is half-burned in the explosion. We know what that means.

When I first saw this movie, I was embarrassingly unfamiliar with Harvey Dent, and who he was destined to become. I think the coin gave me some hints but I remember being surprised when I realised where this was going.

So…..Two Face is born.

The makeup effects are very well done. But….it looks really gross. Not something I actually want to look at.

Harvey is not accepting skin grafts. I’m no doctor, but I don’t think he’s going to be able to just walk around with a big hold in his cheek, with his eyeball all exposed like that, without getting some serious infection.

Maroni claims he can tell Gordon where the Joker will be tonight.

The Joker proves he’s a different kind of criminal when he burns all the money. He’s an agent of chaos. Then he calls the talkback show that’s about to reveal Batman’s identity and threatens more chaos unless someone called “Coleman Reese” isn’t dead within the hour. It wasn’t entirely clear to me at the time, but Coleman Reese is the guy who has figured out Batman’s identity.

Rese is not dead, so true to his word, The Joker sets off a bomb destroying the entire hospital.

They managed to clear it, fortunately.

Bruce has developed a system where he can use every mobile phone in the city to listen in and pinpoint people of interest. As Lucious points out, it’s a clear violation of privacy and potentially gives too much power to one person, even though the only person Bruce trusts to use it, over even himself, is Lucious.

It’s an interesting dilemma. It may help Bruce find The Joker, and Lucious is willing to help him this one time, after which, he’ll resign.

Batman is a vigilante. He operates outside the law. It’s interesting that this is the line that Lucious feels so strongly about.

What do you think? Has Bruce crossed a line here? And if it helps him stop The Joker, is it worth it?

Havey is after the people that took Rachel. Moles within the police department.

The Joker has threatened more chaos and death in the city, and half the population are evacuating Gotham via ferry.

The joker is running a sick social experiment.

Two boats. One full of criminals. Another full of evacuating civilians.

Each rigged with a bomb. Each with a detonator to destroy the other boat.

At midnight he blows both boats up, unless someone on one of the boats pushes their button - destroying the other. The Joker will let that boat live.

So by sacrificing (murdering) the people on the other boat, they’ll save themselves.

The civilian boat is taking a vote.

The guards on the criminal boat are desperately trying to stop the prisoners from rioting and pushing the button.

This kind of sick game is exactly the kind of thing that The Joker delights in.

Meanwhile, Harvey has taken Gordon’s family.

It’s all happening.

There’s lots of fantastic drama as the crews of the boat try to make their decisions. It’s really interesting how it all develops.

Thanks to his invention, Batman has found The Joker. And so begins their epic showdown.

In the end, neither crew destroys the other.

Likewise, Batman and the Joker won’t kill each other, Batman because of his morals, and the Joker because fighting Batman is too much fun.

The joker is fighting for the soul of Gotham. That’s not gonna be won with a fistfight. Much

like Lex in Batman V Superman, he’s trying to make a philosophical point about morality.

But the people in those barges have just proven that the city is full of people willing to do good.

But for how long? The Joker has taken the white knight - Harvey Dent, and transformed him into something ugly. I’m not talking about his face. He’s turned Dent into a killer. The beacon of hope that Bruce so believed in. When people see that, their idealism, their hope in good, will evaporate.

THAT is the joker’s victory.

But the Gotham police arrive and arrest him. He’ll spend the rest of his life in a cell, and that’s the last we see of him in this movie.

But there’s still a good 20 minutes left of the film. How can you have a climax without your primary villain? Isn’t that The Joker?

Well, he may in fact be the primary villain, but putting aside that word, he’s not the primary antagonist.

Harvey Dent is the primary antagonist.

The antagonist is the one who stands opposed to the protagonist’s goal in the story. Our protagonist is Bruce Wayne. And what does he want? Ultimately his goal in this movie is to stop being Batman, so he can be with Rachel. He wants to raise up Harvey Dent as a different kind of hero, a better hero, a white knight who can do the things Batman can’t.

Harvey opposes Bruce’s goals the whole way through. First, simply by being with Rachel, keeping her from a relationship with Bruce.

But ultimately, by becoming bad. By failing to be the hero Bruce wanted him to be. By constantly making bad choices, proving that he’s not the good person Bruce so desperately wants him to be.

And that’s what we’re about to see play out in this final sequence as Harvey threatens Gordon’s family.

So if the Joker isn’t the antagonist, what role does he place in this movie?

I learned this from an old episode of the Writing Excuses podcast about the Hollywood Formula with a guy named Lou Anders. The Joker is what is referred to as the relationship character. The relationship character is the embodiment of the story’s theme. The Joker is constantly trying to convince Batman that he’s more like The Joker than he is like the idealised hero he wants Dent to be. “You’re a freak - just like me.”

In the end, Batman fulfils this by accepting his role as The Dark Knight.

This is fascinating stuff to me.

It’s interesting to me that Harvey has chosen Gordon as the target of all his rage. I understand he failed to save Rachel, but there are bigger targets. The Joker is the most obvious, of course, but he has his reasons why he wants to go for someone more directly connected to the failure.

Batman is a more logical target. Batman was the one who went to the wrong place and saved Harvey instead of Rachel.

I could totally understand Harvey targeting Batman, but Gordon?

I guess the difference is, Gordon is tangible. Gordon is a real person with an identity and a family.

What is Batman? A persona. How do you hurt Batman? Who are his loved ones? You can’t know that without knowing who is behind the mask.

And Harvey’s approach is very Joker-like. He’s playing games. He’s gonna pick one of Gordon’s family, the one he decides Gordon loves the most. That’s the life he’s going to take. One for one.

He doesn’t even want to escape from this, and that makes him especially dangerous.

Batman shows up, mercifully.

Harvey feels betrayed not just on a personal level because of Rachel but on a larger leve.,

“You lied to me. You said we could be decent men, in an indecent time. You were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is change.”

In his mind, that’s fair.

The Joker chose Harvey because he was the best of them. Joker wanted to prove that even a man like Harvey Dent could fall.

Sadly, Harvey has proven him right. That’s the tragedy of this whole story.

The heavy drama here is powerful. Doubly so because I’m a parent.

So Batman rescues the boy, and Harvey dies in the struggle, leaving Gordon and Batman with a dilemma. The Joker has won.

Any hope for saving Gotham dies with Harvey’s reputation.

So Bruce does the only thing he can. There is only one way left to defeat the Joker, and he can’t let the Joker win.

Batman claims responsibility for Harvey’s crimes. “Tell them I did it,” he says to Gordon.

Batman takes the fall for Harvey so that Harvey’s reputation can remain untarnished, thus preserving hope for the people of Gotham.

Batman calls back to something Harvey Dent said early in the movie. He has now grown old enough to see himself become the villain. But not in the way anyone expected.

As Bruce rides off on his bike, Gordon’s son says “But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

I can’t help but see strong Christ parallels here.

An innocent man taking on the crimes of the guilty, for the good of others.

And Christ parallels always hit me right in the heart, because of my own personal beliefs.

This is a tragic but beautiful ending.

So Bruce has now become The Dark Knight. The hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs.

The name takes on so much new significance at the end. It wasn’t just a case of “well, we can’t call it Batman, so what’s another name for Batman?” No. The Dark Knight has deep meaning, especially when contrasted with Harvey Dent as the White Knight. Love it.

Critics of DC films, particularly the ones that get a reputation for being dark, tend to say that the movies are without hope, without optimism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This movie is dripping with hope. It’s all about hope.

I feel the same way about Man of Steel and Batman V Superman.

I love this movie.

It’s so well written.

It all fits together so nicely. Events are foreshadowed. Themes are set up and then paid off satisfactorily.

It’s almost poetic.

So, having now re-watched both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I might still say that Batman Begins is my favourite because I really like the origin story aspect, but I think I might have to say that The Dark Knight is actually the better film.

But we’re talking about the difference between two awesome movies, so what does it really matter? The point is, they’re both fantastic.

Next time, we’ll conclude our look at this trilogy by watching The Dark Knight Rises, which I’ve also only seen once.

And then after that, we launch into our new series on Star Trek Continues.

Have a great two weeks

Live long and prosper

Make it so