The Dark Knight Rises The Joker sized elephant in the room

[Nevincer]

In case of an apocalypse, that vault is the place where I will be going. I respect Nolan's decisions but dammit...

Yup.

 

[MrWayne]

I love Nolan, but despise his level of secrecy!

 

[Blue Sugar]

The world deserves to see every second captured of Heath's Joker.

 

[Miranda Fox]

The world deserves to see every second captured of Heath's Joker.

Why?

I'm serious amd I'm saying this as a huge Ledger fan - why does Nolan have to share something he doesn't want to? It'd be nice and all, don't get me wrong.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

I would love to see some of Ledger's alternate takes, there is that clip of him in one of the trailers, doing the line from the interrogation scene, doing the line about showing Batman what people are really like 'I'll show ya!', and he pulls a right crazy face, it's completely different from the more sober take that Nolan used eventually in the film.
He must have done so many differing takes, surely one day we could get to see them.

edit: they do this all the time with musicians, put alternate takes of songs as bonus tracks on albums, why not with actors takes on scenes?

 

[Agent Orange]

I'm sure that most of you have seen this but the Dominos Pizza promotional trailer for The Dark Knight contained a few different takes.

"This town is miiiine now." @ 2:22.

[YT]l_sxOvIzY7I[/YT]

 

[Dark Sentinel]

I'm sure that most of you have seen this but the Dominos Pizza promotional trailer for The Dark Knight contained a few different takes.

"This town is miiiine now." @ 2:22.

[YT]l_sxOvIzY7I[/YT]

Ahhh, memories t:

Thank you for that.

 

[floreairfoot]

The reason no reference is made in TDK to the events of Begins is because the story is self contained and the events of the previous film are irrelevant, even though it's a sequel. Rises will more than likely be the same.

Johnathan Nolan basically said this, or one of the Nolans did.

 

[the_ultimate_evil]

right personally i feel he needs a mention, i loved the version ledger brought to the screen but like a lot of the nolan trilogy fans have blown it hugely out of proportion, and treated it some kind of untouchable holy grail.

i'd have it during a riot or a scene where everything is going bat****, the cops are reading the defence and gordon points a cell and states that one in particular stays closed and we see a close up of the tag with joker on door

i'd love the idea of the harley tease someone mentioned but to just tease her would be cruel on the fans and sure nolan has said in the past he see's no use for the character so she's not appearing on screen for a long long time

 

[uniqueweasel]

But I think the scarecrow was in the beginning of TDK, and lets be honest there wasn't really any major need for him to be in that scene, but it was a good pick up point in the movie.

 

[Laderlappen]

But I think the scarecrow was in the beginning of TDK, and lets be honest there wasn't really any major need for him to be in that scene, but it was a good pick up point in the movie.

There was. He was still on the lose. THey hadnt closed the book on him. Personally I wouldve prefered they had done that in Batman Begins.

 

[The Joker]

Johnathan Nolan basically said this, or one of the Nolans did.

About TDKR? I think not:

In fact, fans may want to revisit that second film, as Nolan tells EW that the last chapter of his cinematic saga explores the ramifications of The Dark Knight’s chilling climax, in which Batman and super-cop Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) hatch a conspiracy to cover up the sins of Gotham City’s so-called “white knight,” the late Harvey Dent, a.k.a. Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart).

http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/01/11/this-weeks-cover-dark-knight-rises-forecast-2012/

We'd be pretty stupid to ignore the likes of these:

The prologue opened with Gordon talking about Harvey Dent and how he inspired Gotham.

 

[floreairfoot]

I could have sworn someone close to the movie said that the plot was mostly self-contained.

It's obvious that the 2nd flim (and BB) will have huge ramifications in TDKR; the Joker changed everything. Still, it would be it's own beast.

I thought something like that came from Johnathan. Maybe I'm remebering "The trilogy is self-contained", or something like that.

 

[jmc]

Well here's the thing if the film is as some believe to be a sort of 'best of' films one and two then I don't see how it won't be a self contained story like it's predecessors. The question is are you going to have to have seen the previous film to get this one? I'll hazard a guess that despite a billion dollars worth of people having seen it Nolan's not going to assume everyone has.

 

[Marvolo]

Nolan commented in a recent interview that each film is its own contained entity but Bruce has an arc that goes through all three films.

 

[batlovescatDC]

I agree that it would be nice to have some mention, but not one that goes into much detail. Maybe Gordon says something along the lines of "We need to make sure the Clown is out of the city just in case they're including him in their plans." or something like that. A line like that would take care of two things... knowing what's been going on with Joker since TDK (he's been in Arkham), and knowing why the Joker isn't seen in the film whilst all the chaos that's going on. I'm sure after Bane breaks out all the inmates of Blackgate one of the first things that they're going to do is try to prevent them from being able to get any of the ultimate crazies out of Arkham, or try to the prevent them from getting to Arkham period.

But it's not something that I feel NEEDS to happen. But it would be nice.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

I'm sure that most of you have seen this but the Dominos Pizza promotional trailer for The Dark Knight contained a few different takes.

"This town is miiiine now." @ 2:22.

[YT]l_sxOvIzY7I[/YT]

Thanks for posting, I never saw that before, yeah, lots of nice alternate takes there from him, even just the vo dialgue from some scenes, like the alt take on 'we're tonight's entertainment!', and there was that other v brief alt take from the interrogation scene(@ about 1.25/26), which looks like it was from the same alt take i was talking about from the other trailer.
You could actually link those two lines up, I guess that was Nolan's second favourite take on that dialogue delivery, as he sourced from the same alt take in two different trailers.

 

[Laderlappen]

I agree that it would be nice to have some mention, but not one that goes into much detail. Maybe Gordon says something along the lines of "We need to make sure the Clown is out of the city just in case they're including him in their plans." or something like that. A line like that would take care of two things... knowing what's been going on with Joker since TDK (he's been in Arkham), and knowing why the Joker isn't seen in the film whilst all the chaos that's going on. I'm sure after Bane breaks out all the inmates of Blackgate one of the first things that they're going to do is try to prevent them from being able to get any of the ultimate crazies out of Arkham, or try to the prevent them from getting to Arkham period.

But it's not something that I feel NEEDS to happen. But it would be nice.

I already know Joker is locked up. I dont need Nolan treating me as an audience member like Im ******ed.

 

[Nevincer]

Honestly, the Joker made his mark on Gotham just like Batman did, so IMO to not have him referenced in any capacity would be contrived... but it's happened before, unfortunately. They got away with not referencing Thomas Wayne or the Narrows attack because they weren't important to the narrative, and it's gonna happen again with Mr. J I'm sure. As a trilogy about a character as psychologically fascinating as Bruce Wayne I'd rather the trials and tribulations of the past be acknowledged, but the scripts seem be written somewhat standalone and focused on the "here and now".

 

[Bat-Mite]

Honestly, the Joker made his mark on Gotham just like Batman did,

And Ra's al Ghul was responsible for a terrorist attack, the burning of Wayne manor, and his actions led to the destruction of the monorail, but we got no direct references to him. Just a a quotation of his philosophy and a mention of the mansion being rebuilt. Nobody complained.

so IMO to not have him referenced in any capacity would be contrived... but it's happened before, unfortunately. They got away with not referencing Thomas Wayne or the Narrows attack because they weren't important to the narrative, and it's gonna happen again with Mr. J I'm sure.

Perhaps when Batman confronted Dent and called him the only ray of hope the city had seen in decades, he should have added, "Oh, by the way, I mean you're the only ray of hope since the death of Thomas Wayne. *winks at the camera*" They also made the death of Rachel very similar to the death of Wayne's parents, even going so far as to use the same music for the scene when Alfred brings Bruce back to reality. There's no need to beat the audience over the head (they kinda were anyway) by telling them that this was as devastating to him as when his parents died.

Also, they made it quite clear that the Joker collected his goons from the escaped Arkham inmates (not all of whom were crazy as some were just Falcone's thugs who were sent there instead of prison due to Crane being paid off). I don't see why the Narrows needed to be specifically referenced when they included that information. If you pay attention to both movies, it's easy to put two and two together.

As a trilogy about a character as psychologically fascinating as Bruce Wayne I'd rather the trials and tribulations of the past be acknowledged, but the scripts seem be written somewhat standalone and focused on the "here and now".

And there is nothing wrong with that. I'd much rather have a movie that focuses on new information and storylines than retreading over what's already been done. We saw how people responded to the Joker in TDK. This movie has a new threat. Why are people going to be talking about the Joker eight years later? People don't talk about 9/11 much these days except for on the anniversary of it.

 

[Nevincer]

For starters, there were a section of people who followed the last film that were concerned the narrows attack wasn't followed up. They existed, they certainly weren't "nobody", and the large majority of people that watched TDK had never seen Begins so how can you expect that kind of criticism to be anything more than a whimper?

Your reasoning about how the Joker wouldn't be referenced after eight years is also flawed for a few reasons. The first is obviously that the events of TDK are still in the minds of the citizens, why else would Bane go to the effort to expose Harvey Dent and severe the 'peace time' if Joker's corruption of the man and pretty much everything that occured in that 'war' wasn't still relevant. There's also the possibility that Batman is gone for a good portion of those eight years, some theorize his exile was straight after TDK at the same time Joker was incarcerated, and it goes without saying that he'll be referenced in his absence so why wouldn't the Joker?

Then you've also got the fact that, and this leads into the whole Thomas Wayne thing as well, that despite a good portion of Begins being set seven years after the trial with Joe Chill, he was referenced all over it. Goyer's handiwork? Probably, BB did definitely like to hit you over the head more, but the shift in tone was still fairly obvious and a viewer of the first movie couldn't help but think the Parent's issue and the situation in the Narrows got shafted, much like some people who loved TDK probably will for some of that film's issues in this sequel, i'm sure.

 

[BestGirl]

The actual reason that the Joker needs to be referenced in TDKR is that we can assume that Bane has released inmates from Arkham because of [BLACKOUT]Scarecrow's[/BLACKOUT] scene. The audience is going to be curious to see, if he's running loose, why the Joker isn't.

 

[Brother Jack]

Specific plot points and characters from TDK seem to be having a more direct impact on TDKR in a way that those elements from Begins did not in TDK. In the latter case it was more about implicit references, like the short bits of dialogue about Falcone being in Arkham. The very fact that the Narrows isn't featured is a allusion to them being destroyed in the first film, so a direct mention is really necessary. TDKR feels more like a culmination, though I do think it will still work as a single episode and I'm curious to see how that plays out. I'm sure the Joker will be mentioned in dialogue.

 

[Laderlappen]

The actual reason that the Joker needs to be referenced in TDKR is that we can assume that Bane has released inmates from Arkham because of [BLACKOUT]Scarecrow's[/BLACKOUT] scene. The audience is going to be curious to see, if he's running loose, why the Joker isn't.

Atleast your suggestion has a reason, instead a pointless namedrop.

 

[Charlie The Red]

Considering the Joker is guilty of federal crimes, creating mass hysteria in a major city that required the implementation of the national guard, and is essentially a domestic terrorist, it's doubtful he'd be locked up in the same place as the rest of Gotham's criminals.

It's far more likely that he's locked away in a federal hole under 24 hours of solitary confinement, or is in some kind of terrorist detainment camp overseas (such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba).

You'd have to pretty damn stupid to lock a guy like that up in the same city he tried to destroy.

Has anyone considered that since this movie is set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, that perhaps The Joker has been executed? Like Timothy McVeigh? It's food for thought. While the guy is definitely nuts in TDK, he still doesn't fit the legal definition of insane. If he were convicted I'm pretty sure he would be sentenced to death, or life in a federal prison minimum.

People have been sent to death row for a hell of a lot less, I can say that much.