Board 8 > Who here has seen The Dark Knight recently?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Film's 10th anniversary is this year! If anyone wants to know my thoughts feel free to ask.
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In your opinion, if you had to pick one, which character makes this such a high quality movie?
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I saw it last fall. It's held up pretty well. Only problems I have are 1) that Katie Holmes was way, way better as Rachel than Maggie Gyllenhaal and 2) that Batman doesn't have as much of a protagonal focus as he should. Still a solid 9/10 movie, of course. Heath Ledger's swan song is fantastic. RIP.
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Silly Batman voice

I remember assuming DKR would fix it, but they just double downed on it.
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KujikawaRising posted...

1) that Katie Holmes was way, way better as Rachel than Maggie Gyllenhaal

Literally my only problem with it. Flawless movie otherwise.

Actually Katie Holmes wasn't exactly great either but yeah comparatively she kills it
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Haven't seen it in a while, probably rewatch when I do a Nolan Trilogy weekender.
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KujikawaRising posted...

Heath Ledger's swan song is fantastic. RIP.

Technically this distinction goes to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus though.
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ClyTheCool posted...

In your opinion, if you had to pick one, which character makes this such a high quality movie?

Favorite character from the film? If I had to pick one I'd go with The Joker, but I personally didn't think Heath Ledger's acting was a whole lot better than anyone else's. That is in part a testament to how strong the performances from the rest of the cast were, but all the same, I've seen four movies that won Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars over the past year and I felt Ledger was the weakest of the four (the other three were Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies, Sean Connery in The Untouchables, and Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds).
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The Scarecrow was the most well-utilized villain in a comic book film thanks to TDK actually remembering that characters exist past one film.
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I've seen The Tangerine Knight recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS6bD3SpIvk" data-time="
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Personally, I believe in Harvey Dent.
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Honestly the film feels very character-driven, which is probably one of its greatest strengths.
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haven't seen the dark knight in ages but it's a great movie.

in my opinion batman begins is better though, even though i actually prefer maggie gyllenhaal to katie holmes.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

i actually prefer maggie gyllenhaal to katie holmes.

Might I ask why?

As I see it, Maggie is bland as a board. Katie has this headstrong, do-not-fuck-with-me aura but a sense of kindness at the same time. Maggie made the character boring and forgettable and I legit did not care when the building blew up with her in it after The Joker tricked Batman.

Batman Begins is good too but misses a few critical things, like with the villain.
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Maggie just wasn't that good an actress

I watched it again on a plane recently (flight was literally just long enough, it was perfect) and I was surprised how out of her depth she looked at times. And honestly, Eckhart wasn't that great either. Sometimes good, Sometimes not.

But it's obviously a fucking great film. I'd actually forgotten just how good though - the incredible pace that it has, especially after Hong Kong, is really remarkable.
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Why would I see an inferior version of Batman when I could watch The Animated Series? (or better yet, Batman Beyond where the new Batman being inferior is actually part of the plot)

I'm joking, actually. Not about disliking the film, but if it's a good film, it's a good film. I just don't like the direction Batman went around this time period.

Still better than MurderHobo Batman, though.
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Heath's Joker is still my favorite villain in the last 10 years and arguably top 5 all time.
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KujikawaRising posted...

Might I ask why?

As I see it, Maggie is bland as a board. Katie has this headstrong, do-not-fuck-with-me aura but a sense of kindness at the same time. Maggie made the character boring and forgettable and I legit did not care when the building blew up with her in it after The Joker tricked Batman.

Batman Begins is good too but misses a few critical things, like with the villain.

i'd have to rewatch the movies to give a good answer but i just remember katie's acting being pretty bad. granted, maggie wasn't much better, but yeah. i do wish they stuck with katie, though, as i always think it's kinda silly when characters switch actors/actresses in superhero movies and the audience is just supposed to accept it. i think there's like 26 women who have portrayed kitty pryde in the x-men movies.

and yeah, obviously BB doesn't have a character as great as the joker in it but i thought BB was great from start to finish while TDK had some low points - i thought the stuff with lau was kinda boring, for instance. both are amazing movies, though. for me TDK is like a 9.5 and BB is a 10.
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one of my fav movies of all time

loved the china part simply because it was such a good action sequence

thought harvey dent was just as critical to it as the joker
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SeabassDebeste posted...

one of my fav movies of all time

loved the china part simply because it was such a good action sequence

thought harvey dent was just as critical to it as the joker

My problem with Hong Kong was...it was just another city? I feel like if you're going to leave Gotham you should really show the difference in the locale to provide like a visual contrast or something but they didn't really take advantage of that.

I still really liked it though
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Katie's Rachel was basically a naive headstrong idealist. I'm not a fan of Katie Holmes but I think she played the role she needed to pretty passably.

Maggie's had less naivete and more of a cockiness to her. It wasn't really gelling with her intended role in the movie I felt, and I felt it had more to do with the delivery than the dialogue. She came off as more bitchy than any sort of sympathetic or likable figure.
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Huh I thought Gyllenhaal and Eckhart were very good.
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