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The Rewatchables ·

The Dark Knight

year 2008decade 00sdirector Christopher Nolangenre Actiongenre Neo-noirgenre Crimegenre Superhero
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Jason Concepcion
All 11 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 20:10

The Joker's fundraiser party appearance

Nominees open with the bank robbery, maybe the best opening of a movie this century: note for note a recreation of elements of Heat, called an annoying homage, but with the hairs-on-the-neck feeling of zip lines across skyscrapers that look real and robbers in clown masks shooting each other; the clip is played.

Asked whether all the bank-robbery dialogue was recorded in post, a research tidbit is offered: not much went wrong on this set, but there were problems with the IMAX cameras in this scene and a couple of out-of-focus shots, so audio fixes would not be surprising.

The film

The Dark Knight (2008)

Directed by Christopher Nolan · Action

152 minutes

IMDb
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Christian Bale Bruce Wayne / Batman
Michael Caine Alfred Pennyworth
Heath Ledger the Joker
Gary Oldman James Gordon
Aaron Eckhart Harvey Dent / Two-Face
Maggie Gyllenhaal Rachel Dawes
Morgan Freeman Lucius Fox

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

16:28

Casting What-Ifs

Josh Lucas, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo and Matt Damon were linked to Harvey Dent; Paul Bettany, Steve Carell, Robin...

Josh Lucas, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo and Matt Damon were linked to Harvey Dent; Paul Bettany, Steve Carell, Robin Williams, Adrian Brody and Ryan Phillippe were rumored for the Joker; Dwight Yoakam was said to have been offered the bank manager

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:28Read transcript
  • Casting what-ifs are knocked out fast because the movie cannot be imagined with anyone else; Harvey Dent is called secretly very good casting because the part needed someone who thought he was a big deal but actually was not, which is perfect for Aaron Eckhart, a shot another host, who loves Eckhart, pushes back on with a joke about a Gulf Coast condo built on Eckhart stock.
  • Actors who expressed interest or auditioned for Harvey Dent: Josh Lucas, not heard from much since Glory Road; Liev Schreiber, judged a little too dark and stormy for a Dent who has to start as a golden boy, though he could have been a good Two Face; Mark Ruffalo, rejected as way too cerebral and neurotic; and Matt Damon, which prompts the question of why Damon just wants to be in a Christopher Nolan movie.
  • Young, Courage Under Fire-era Matt Damon would have made a great Robin.
  • Christopher Nolan is quoted as never really having considered anyone but Heath Ledger for the Joker, which is dismissed as what they say after the fact; actors rumored for the role were Paul Bettany (fine), Steve Carell (no), Robin Williams (maybe in a Tim Burton movie, a little too ghoulish), Adrian Brody (as transcribed; 'I can see it') and Ryan Phillippe, who is said to turn up more than anyone in lists of roles he did not get and to have been in the final three for Captain America with Krasinski and Chris Evans, which usually means great publicist, bad agent.
  • Ledger's performance is so legendary, arguably the most iconic movie performance of the 21st century, that nobody can be put in the role; an actor rumored for it would be wise to scrub that from the internet.
  • William Fichtner's bank manager is said to have been offered to Dwight Yoakam, who was busy recording Dwight Meets Buck, prompting the question whether that is a Buck Owens cover record; the hosts love Yoakam as a movie actor, a legend in Panic Room and Wedding Crashers with a quiet malevolence on screen, though he would not have been right for this particular role.
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42:58

Half-Assed Internet Research

Nolan avoided a Joker origin story and changed the chemical scarring to knife wounds; Michael Caine doubted the film ...

Nolan avoided a Joker origin story and changed the chemical scarring to knife wounds; Michael Caine doubted the film and that Ledger could top Nicholson, then forgot his lines on first working with him; IMAX camera problems left out-of-focus shots in the bank robbery

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:42:58Read transcript
  • Little wild happened before or after filming apart from the tragic air of Ledger's passing; Nolan purposely avoided giving the Joker an origin story and changed his canonical chemical scarring to knife wounds to keep his origins unclear.
  • Michael Caine did not think the movie would work or that Ledger could top Jack Nicholson's Joker, but was blown away and so frightened on first working with Ledger that he forgot his lines; the hosts call him dead wrong about Ledger.
  • Caine's role is worth exploring: he has become the Professor Emeritus of every Nolan movie, the man who comes in and says something pithy, and here he keeps telling Batman why he is doing what he does, as if he thinks he is Batman; a Lethal Weapon 2 South African villain impression breaks out along the way.
  • Alfred mythology as the hosts recall it: a British soldier with combat medical training, which is why he can fix Bruce's broken ribs, who somehow got into manservanting after a colonial expedition and buoyed Bruce after his parents' death; yet he tells a Burmese bandit story Bruce, a 40-year-old man ten years into fighting villains, has never heard.
  • The bandit story is an extended metaphor for a Joker with no methodology who just wants to watch the world burn, an iconic line, but also movie poppycock, screenwriter push-ups, like letting Michael Caine get a couple of minutes isolated on the wing; he got to cry in Dark Knight Rises.
  • The hosts question how Alfred's Dark Knight sermon, that Batman must eat shit as the outcast and sin eater, squares with his Dark Knight Rises wish to see Bruce at a cafe in Venice; it is jarring, though five or six years have passed, Wayne keeps coming home bruised and concussed, and Alfred has his own arc toward believing Batman should stop.
  • Does Morgan Freeman need to be in these movies, could Alfred not also be good at gadgets, and how many characters could be removed with the movie still effective.
  • An early tidbit: there were problems with the IMAX cameras on the bank robbery and a couple of out-of-focus shots.
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1:07:09

Probably Unanswerable Questions

What happens to the Joker? Why couldn't Harvey's crimes have been pinned on the Joker instead of Batman? Why are all ...

What happens to the Joker? Why couldn't Harvey's crimes have been pinned on the Joker instead of Batman? Why are all the criminals on a boat?

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:09Read transcript
  • The major unanswerable question is what happens to the Joker: the Dark Knight Rises novelization has him as the lone prisoner in Arkham, but Nolan is quoted from the promo trail as not addressing the Joker at all out of respect for Heath and not wanting to account for a real-life tragedy.
  • Why could Harvey's crimes not have been pinned on the Joker, a criminal mastermind already in an asylum, instead of making Batman take the public fall; the answer offered is that it is an artifact of earlier scripts where Dent's goodness carried more of the dramatic load.
  • Why are all the criminals on a boat, and to go where; the hosts can only guess they are being evacuated with the city.
  • Earlier, the Joker's long-term plan was flagged as something to return to because it is really hard to tell.
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1:07:47

Picking Nits

Nobody notices a drastically scarred cop in the 21-gun salute; Gordon could not have planned his fake death; just sho...

Nobody notices a drastically scarred cop in the 21-gun salute; Gordon could not have planned his fake death; just shoot the Joker in the face; the Lau and Coleman Reese pursuits are unnecessary; the boat scene is on the nose; constant shuttling of criminals and unexplained lying; Lucius Fox objects to phone surveillance after years of building weapons

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:47Read transcript
  • How does nobody notice a drastically scarred cop at the funeral, one of the 21-gun salute participants, still wearing caked-on makeup, with a buddy who looks equally criminally insane in uniform.
  • Gordon could not have planned to fake his death without knowing how or where the assassination attempt would come from; the whole plan is high-level poppycock, any resulting case gets thrown out of court, and he could have just hidden.
  • The one thing you cannot do in a superhero movie, but should, is just shoot the Joker in the face, which would solve every problem.
  • The entire Lau pursuit and the entire Coleman Reese pursuit are unnecessary; plotting problems are otherwise accepted as part of a comic book movie, but the two-boats social experiment is wished less on the nose; the clip is played.
  • There is a lot of shuttling of supposed criminals, Lau from Hong Kong, Dent from central holding to county, prisoners onto a boat, and a lot of weird lying excused as not having time to tell anyone.
  • Lucius Fox has overseen war weapons for an outlaw detective yet draws the line at listening to phone calls; a correction notes he built them as his job, like an arms dealer, Tony Stark style, and the Batsuit itself comes from dark weapons experiments; pull one thread of a Nolan plot and fifteen balls of yarn come out.
  • Early aside: the skyhook feels out of place in a movie that otherwise feels like Heat.
  • During the mob meeting, Lau appears on a little Sanyo TV from a plane to China with no wireless internet, so it is unclear how high-quality video is being beamed.
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Mentions across The Rewatchables

Recorded movie reference

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Transcript time unavailableRead transcript
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