Comments on: Assessing the Themes of The Dark Knight

By: Christopher_Nol

Christopher_Nol — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:51:19 +0000

@ Jerry crack corn and brian -

first let me just say that i personally FUCKING loved the movie, so cynics like u 'Jerry Crack Corn (wat kinda fukn name is dat?) plz dnt insult a movie which is considered to be a legacy of Heath Ledgers career . and to brian - there is no point in trying to justify urself with people like crack corn here .

guys in the end its JUST a MOVIE and this guys philosophy on the movie is just his way of thinking - doesnt mean its ABSOLUTELY truthful . just something to THINK about not to ARGUE . it is an ambigous movie which can be argued in many ways .

so please . stop being bitches .
be men and just fight it out :D

peace .

and GOD bless .

By: dino54396

dino54396 — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:26:08 +0000

I want to start by saying that I agree with most of what is said in these posts, and all the themes in which people have already hit. However, I think that many people have over looked that this movie was not necessarily the epic good vs. evil which we like to discuss so much.
I don’t think it was intended at all to make Batman out to be a hero in this version of the story, which is what makes these new movies so much better than the originials. It is mentioned over and over again that Batman is a renegade seeking vigilanti justice and must pay for these crimes in the future. These are movies about criminals fighting criminals. The difference, in this case between Batman and the criminals he fights, is that Batman is willing to accept his fate because of his love for his city and the people who live in it.
While he may have some personal feelings which put him onto this vendetta he has against the criminals of Gotham, his true motivation which is mentioned in the movie is that he is trying to inspire regular citizens to stand up for what is virtuous. He realizes that in order to do this, he himself cannot be the hero of the saga, but people like Dent can. It is his love for the city of Gotham and its people that he continues to do what he does, because he knows that some day he can inspire enough of them to be good and stand up for justice, that the corruption will dissapear. For once, a story is being told where a super hero is not out for glory, but is making the sacrifices necessary to no longer be needed. This concept becomes quite evident at the end of the movie, in the famous boat scenes that everyone keeps touching on. These are both criminals and citizens who struggle with their own mortality and the new found inspiration that they have to do and be what is right, good, and just. The fact that neither the convicts nor the citizens blow the other up proves that while maybe a leader has not emerged who can be “the hero that Gotham needs”, the people of Gotham have in their own way begun to change into the people that Batman has wanted to inspire them to be.
The true theme of this film, I believe, is the people. Some of the best stories in our history are not about single men who stand up against evil, but single men who can encourage other people to stand up for what is just. And without trying to use this forum for my own agenda, as a Christian, I would argue that this kind of story is lost if we only think of the characters of Good and Evil and do not remember that all of scripture, all of life, and all of history as well as our future is about the people of this world and of all time, and trying to inspire virtue and justice in the hearts of everyone, so that in coming together, evil cannot prevail against us. That is the true theme of Dark Knight, I believe, and to reduce it to the mere good vs. evil epic of all the previous batman series as well as other super hero movies would only be creating another excuse as to why we ourselves do not act.

By: joker is my hero

joker is my hero — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:49:31 +0000

Amid the thousands of posts i found one that is so,ewhat similar to what i believe as well.

WallE posted that the purpose of the joker is to expose the veil we use to cover our corruptible selves. He wants us to openly accept this ignorance that we have deliberately put on ourselves to hide from our true dark souls. We as human beings are falling & unless we expose ourselves to our dark side we may never be able to gestate ourselves into a new & more humane identity. anarchy must come to rule as soon as possible. the inevitable must happen. the sooner the better. for me the batman taking the blame upon himself for dent’s actions basically delays the inevitable …. so for that reason …. Joker is the hero for me & Bruce is unfortunately the villain…. coz i dont beleive that those who are insane & crazy dont have a purpose ….. its just that they reach their purpose through spontaneity, anarchy & desperation.

the thing is simply that we need to deiced …
whether we need false hope or do we need the truth ….. its up 2 u 2 decide what you want ….. but your decision would ultimately decide who you think is the real hero for us in the movie …… bruce or the joker …..

By: Piston Hurricane

Piston Hurricane — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:45:40 +0000

Jerry ain’t a troll. He didn’t like the movie and I respect his viewpoint, even though I don’t agree with it. I myself felt kind of depressed after seeing this movie and didn’t like it so much after the first view. I gave it another try and I truly enjoyed it. This movie kicks ass in so many ways. I loved the theme analysis on this movie. It’s not the typical superhero movie and I love that. The movie is is really about us as people and all the diverse issues of becoming evil and corrupt. Plenty of what we see around the world today. I can’t really say much that’s already been said here, but this movie is truly a masterpiece and the genre has never been put on screen in such manner.

By: PQPigg

PQPigg — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:13:04 +0000

So, here is why the Joker could not be blamed for the deaths. If you tell a lie (that Dent did not kill the people) then the person(s) that know the truth better be reliable. IF the Joker gets blamed you have given the Joker the chance to tell the Truth and further demoralize the citizens of Gotham. And the Joker than gets to do the greatest evil of furthering chaos and anarchy by telling the Truth. That is why they did not blame the Joker. It would give him too much power to further advance the agenda of despair. Rather than weakening the plot line it demonstrates that the writer had thought through the Joker’s next step. (Although it would make a heck of a sequel as the Joker broadcasts out a cell phone video of Dent killing the people that he hacked from the Batman’s surveillance network before it was destroyed.)

By: Darik

Darik — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:25:37 +0000

Wow. It scares me how much I hate this “Jerry” guy, just from reading his posts. I will say this, though: he actually has a few valid points. They could have shifted the blame from Dent to the Joker just as easily as they could have from Dent to Batman. I just wish he wouldn’t punctuate them with terms like “made me want to vomit” or “heroic gayness”. You can make your point without resorting to juvenile smart-ass remarks.

And incidentally, it’s actually a wiser decision to saddle Batman with the blame for killing those people, for two reasons: 1) the Joker is in custody by movie’s end, which means that they would have to find a way to PROVE that he killed those people specifically, which would be, naturally, impossible to do, and 2) if the criminals of Gotham hear that Batman has killed five people, he’ll become an even more effective crime-fighter, because they’ll be AFRAID of him again (remember? In the Maroni interrogation scene, Maroni says that they [Gotham's criminals] have figured out that Batman’s got a set of rules, specifically that he won’t kill. If they think he’s ABANDONED that rule, they’ll be scared sh*tless again when they come face-to-face with him- ESPECIALLY since one of the victims was Maroni himself).

And about the article, I actually found it quite insightful. Sure, good vs. evil is an obvious theme, but notice that he points out that its referring to Dent vs. Joker, not Batman vs. Joker, and that, in that respect, it becomes a unique treatment of the theme in that good loses. It’s also interesting to note that good and order are not presented as inseparable concepts, though they aren’t mutually exclusive, either.

Well, I loved this movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the examination of its themes. Whether you enjoyed it and agreed with its ideas or not, there’s obviously plenty in the Dark Knight to discuss… which I will have to do later, as I can barely keep my eyes open. Until next time!

By: Lexie J. Darling

Lexie J. Darling — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:29:00 +0000

In a Sense i was both dissapointed and yet not with the ending of this movie. I felt as though the scene on the boat should have ended with the regular people blowing up the inmates, seeing as how it would have been more realistic. But i do think that that was the whole point of the movie.

Even with such an unstopable force such as Joker, or in a real life scenareo, Anarchy, it is easy to corrupt a singal person no matter how good they seem on surface value. But as a whole, it is harder to corrupt people. It seems to go back to what one person said in their comment, as a whole he, the Joker couldn’t bring Gotham to it’s knees but by sperarting it’s heros, Gordon, Dent and Batman, it had one hell of a chance at succedding.

This was the point of the movie, look at any tragic real life inciddent that has happened over the last hundred or so years. As people, indivisuals were can be killed, distroyed, brought down but as a country, nation, or even a city, we are strong, as a group we prevail and even with out Batman, Dent, and Gordon the people of Gotham would have been saved.

People,ideas, chaos, Jokers, they can’t stand nor comprehend good people, they are people who bad things have happend to or ideas taken to far and they don’t last. Humans, emotions, love it always prevails and that is why Joker was able to be stopped time and time again.

But perhaps we are all just looking way to deep into what was simply just supposed to be a fun movie for us to enjoy!

Chow for Now
Lexie D!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:34:37 +0000

I picked up on something else, remember the first movie, Batman Begins, where the league of shadows were going to wipe out the city of Gotham and Bruce refused to play along, saying that Gotham could be saved. Well there is a reference to it when Alfred talks about the bandit in Burma, to get the Bandit to surrender, they chose to burn the forest down.

This is highlighting a major difference in approach to solving a problem of crime. One man may choose to annihilate everything he deems to be evil, where another (Batman) chooses to live with having to grind it out everyday and fight the hard fight. Bruce has to live with the fact that Gotham is tearing itself apart and he could have easily let it burn to the ground, in summary, I think the message is something like this: it’s harder to fight for something you love and save it, then it is to give up and let it all burn.

Food for thought in these chaotic modern times.

By: bRUCE wAYNE

bRUCE wAYNE — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:54:08 +0000

I loved the dark knight….BUT I think the only problem was….whenever they had a scene, they would over explain it ( like in james bond where the villain would give a lecture about how he was going to kill them) Take the scene where the joker was in the hospital w/ harvey dent after the accident. He goes on and on about ” say I want to blow up a building ..then i’d go on tv and blow it up” I kinda thought that was unnessacary because insane ppl don’t really justify why they are crazy they just are. The joker always seemed to explain too much for a crazy person which made you wonder if he was crazy at all, crazy ppl can’t explain why “they” are crazy. They may bring up brilliant points about things but never themselves. Remember in Silence of the lambs and hannibal lecter was talking to clarice. She said” Most murderers always leave a trinket or something after they kill” Hannibal says ” I didn’t” she says “no…you ate yours” and then he kind of looks away. No Hannibal is more genius than 5 jokers combined and that proves my point that serial killer never analyze themselves….deep huh? lol

By: andrew

andrew — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:58:12 +0000

Joker says that their morals and code are like a bad joke. they are only as good as the world allows them to be.

he wants to break down society in order to reveal the “true colors” of the schemers.

the schemes, he says, are horrifying.

he said that batman showed the world the “true colors” of the mobsters.

batman reveals the true nature of criminals, the joker reveals the true nature of society.

the joker does not hate batman because the batman does not change his ideology under pressure.

“i’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve”
-he is saying that “civilized people” are truly monsters underneath.

the dogs symbolize people’s true nature: they eat their former master when they get hungry. it is the uglyness of humanity that batman is fighting in the last fight.

THE ONLY SENSIBLE WAY TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD IS WITHOUT RULES.

killing is making a choice. the joker forces the batman to kill and to break his one rule

Joker refers to himself as a dog chasing cars. he is identifying himself as a dog: a person with no rules.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:32:13 +0000

On the 3rd time I watched TDK I think I know what kind of bugs me about the whole Prisoner’s Dilemma part of the ferries.

The whole movie the Joker enlists the people of Gotham in the same way and the whole time Batman/Bruce Wayne rushes into action rather than have faith everyone will do the right thing.

The Joker tells people to kill the guy about to give away Batmans identity or else a hospital will blow up… and a guy takes a shot outside the building, a cop is about to shoot him in the vehicle, and a truck tries to smash into the vehicle holding the guy but Bruce Wayne intercepts it with his Lamborghini…. I can see the differences a little, but I don’t think they are that substantial. Loved one in a hospital that may or may not be evacuated in time… and you are willing to “attempt” to cold bloodily murder a guy rather than go make sure your loved ones are evacuated safely (a viable alternative. At least three people would now be arrested for attempted murder, without the self-defense argument they could plausibly give with the ferry situation.

Granted that is a lot more than one guy, they’d be killing, but it’s also mother’s and father’s with their kids on board.

And Batman was SOOOOOO sure about the prisoner’s?? That they aren’t as bad as the Joker seems to think? Remember these are the same prisoners that Dent arrested en masse. An act that made Batman think that he could hang up his spurs….. obviously these are the guys that Bruce created Batman to fight against.

And now he has faith that they wouldn’t do it to save themselves?

It’d be better if both ferries were transporting average Gotham citizens. Then I’d buy Batman’s faith a little easier. Not totally though.

Obviously, I love this movie. I absolutely adore it. This was just one minor thing that I can easily overlook. And it isn’t that it it isn’t consistent with the real world…. it just doesn’t seem consistent with the Gotham City in the rest of the movie.

By: Emmitt

Emmitt — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:20:48 +0000

I just saw this:

“I completely agree. The movie was your basic case that violence against “criminals” (whoever that might be) is perfectly ok because we live in chaotic and unpredictably violent times.”

And had to post. I disagree. If this were the case, Batman wouldn’t have bothered with the copycats at the beginning of the movie. He wouldn’t have chewed them out for wanting to do what he does. He also wouldn’t have that one rule of his- the rule where he doesn’t kill anyone.

But that’s just the way I see it. It wouldn’t be the first time a movie has been seen as being fascist, though.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:18:24 +0000

The bombs on two boats scenario is based on ‘the prisoners’ dilemma’ derived from game theory. The idea being that two players in a game can choose between two moves; either ‘cooperate’ or ‘defect’. The idea is that each player gains when both cooperate, but if only one of them cooperates, the other one, who defects, will gain more - but they can’t confer. (U can Google it 4 more.) Joker wants to demonstrate that ultimately everyone is as murderous and ruthless as he is. The passengers could attempt to save their own lives by destroying the other boat, providing they act first. Joker expects one boat to do so. But there is also a moral dimension, by destroying a boat the survivors will also be mass murderers and they both chose not to do so.
It’s interesting this scenario was chosen for the film.

On 9/11 if those in one tower could have saved themselves by choosing to destroy the other tower would they have done so? But then becoming terrorists themselves. Nolan is saying that no they wouldn’t have (correctly in my opinion); they’d decide to take their own chances and someone else would have to take the moral responsibility as to whether they live or die. (There’s also a rough parallel with nuclear deterrence here.) This is the defeat of Joker and what he stands for.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:02:33 +0000

“The film really goes out of its way to identify dogs as a threat to batman, especially when Freeman tells BM that the suit won’t protect him against dogs.”

Maybe they’re trying to say that Batman is really a black guy.

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:40:24 +0000

I think the dogs were more important in some way than has been touched on yet. The film really goes out of its way to identify dogs as a threat to batman, especially when Freeman tells BM that the suit won’t protect him against dogs.

At the end, Joker is standing looking out a window at the ferries, with three dogs guarding him. No henchmen are anywhere near the Joker himself. This might be a reference to the three headed dog guarding the gates of mythology’s version of hell.

Then again, maybe they’re just dogs…

By: Albert

Albert — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:26:03 +0000

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned already(so many comments), but the people who truly understood Batman(aside from Luscious, Alfred, and Rachel), were the criminals. Jerry Seinfeld put it best when he said that “great and sucks aren’t that much different than each other.” The way I’m interpreting that is that good and evil have are separated by a thin line.

I really liked when the people on the boats opted to not kill one another. The tone of the film was so dark, that I thought the people would blow themselves up, and The Joker would win. Nolan really gave the people of Gotham a bit more credit, when it seemed like the people of Gotham were just egocentric bigots, and The Joker merely exposed them for what they were.

I felt tired after watching TDK. The film captivated my attention so much so that I forgot that I needed to take a huge piss, when normally I want a film to end so I can go to the restroom. I don’t think anyone got up during the film, and it was a packed theater. Kudos to Nolan, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, and HEATH F’N LEDGER.

ps.
Is it just me or is Aaron Eckhart’s character (Two-Face/Harvey Dent) terribly underrated?

By: Weas Frikis » Blog Archive » Post-Dark Knight

Weas Frikis » Blog Archive » Post-Dark Knight — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:10:29 +0000

[...] URL: SlashFilm: Assessing the Themes of The Dark Knight. [...]

By: rmiller808

rmiller808 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:53:21 +0000

Who are the five people Dent kills?

Gordon says we can’t sweep five people under the rug.

I count 4.

-The cop who drove dent to the sight where he blew up
-Maroni
-Maroni’s driver
-And Dent himself…

Any thoughts? Perhaps a deleted killing scene???

By: Bagger

Bagger — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:41:30 +0000

Sorry if this has already been pointed out/concluded, but:

The reason why Batman needed to take the blame was that he had to reaffirm both himself and Dent as their respective symbols. Dent was to be a symbol to the public, whereas Batman was to be a symbol to the criminals.

The whole point where this is build up happens when he interrogates the italian mob boss outside the disco. The italian points out that the reason the fear the Joker more than Batman is because Batmans rules prevent him from killing them.

Therefore, Batman takes the blame for the murders of the mobsters and the corrupt cops to reaffirm the symbol his status as a symbol of fear in the cirminal underworld. While at the same time “puryfying” Dent, who is the white knight the public needs to look up to…

makes sense right?

By: Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:59:54 +0000

I see the ending where Batman takes the blame as making sense. Batman wanted to do the same as Dent…he wanted to take that revenge on those crooked cops that drove Racheal off and the mob that hired the Joker. As much as he wouldn’t do it, a part of him wanted to. Dent did what he wanted. He identified with Dent’s actions. This is why he took on the blame - his mind committed those killings but his body didn’t. This is very similar theme as Batman Begins where he wanted to kill the man who killed his parents.