I had the exact same thought when I watched it the first time. I could watch Heath Ledger play The Joker for another 2 1/2 hour movie! What an awesome villain!!

Sorry, if this has already been posted, but I thought this might be of interest considering Ledger's great performance...it might have come at a high price:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008...ger_on_jo.html

I'm fairly certain Jack's "warning" was about using sleeping pills and **** like that not "ZOMG THAT JOKER ROLE GUNNA MAKE YOU CRAZY SON!!!"

lol i thought that was nicky katts

he still gets alot of love in hollywood fwiw

According to the excerpt, Ledger stated that since taking the role, he was sleeping like two hours per night. I didn't say that Jack said that the Joker role made you crazy, but Ledger admitted that it was taking a toll on him.

I know but the title of the article is "Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger on 'Joker' role"...I think this is quite misleading.

EDIT: Actually when all this **** went down last January I remember reading more of what Nicholson had to say about his "warning"...I remember he made it quite clear that he talking about Ledger using pills. There was definitely nothing said about the role itself or Nicholson giving some sort of insider warning about playing the Joker, a notion this article tries to assert.

Stop spoiling our meta-movie fun imo.

I'm taking bets vs. anyone reputable that Two-Face ain't dead.

My willingness to take this bet would rest solely on who writes & directs the third one. If it's Nolan, you're on. If it's someone like Brett Ratner, I would imagine they'd bring him back, as well as have Chris Tucker play the Joker.

if jackie chan plays batman i will die a happy man.

I could have sworn I saw two-faces chest heaving (ie breathing) after he fell and he was lying next to batman

if 2-face was breathing wouldn't gordon call an ambulance for him or something?

oh man, reading through this thread again I realized I'd forgotten about the Dent courtroom scene where the witness pulls the gun. That was just lolterrible in every possible way. Fortunately the rest of the movie was good enough that I forgot about it soon after.

I wouldn't mind seeing Two-Face back in the third, but I hope he isn't the main villian. His arc works well in this movie because he goes from being the white knight to someone who is angry and wants personal vengeance. It makes logical sense for his character to transform into a vengeful murder who wants redemption. I don't think it would make sense for him to turn into someone trying to destroy Gotham. In BB and TDK The Joker, Scarecrow, and Liam Neeson (not even going to try to spell Raz al whatever) had grander plans to destroy Gotham, which worked very well. I don't think the Two-Face character would work very well in a world domination/destruction type angle and I don't think a movie about a serial killer would work too well in Nolan's Gotham, which is already full of corruption and violence.

Yeah 2+ hours of 2-face as the main bad guy would suck. I would be very surprised if any director chose that. I could see a main villian, with 2-face as sort of an accomplice or just constant **** disruptor to Batman's plans. Then in the end 2-face plays a key role in the outcome and maybe gets some sort of redemption before dying.

If Brett Ratner is named as the director for the third one, let's just both agree now to kill Brett Ratner or die trying.

Bale has denied the charges (not surprising) but the cops have also let him go: http://www.tmz.com/2008/07/22/bale-s...ons-are-bogus/

Early word is that it was "verbal assault" http://www.tmz.com/2008/07/22/did-ba...-trigger-bust/ . Here's to hoping that his mom and sister are drunks who were begging for money and he merely told them to **** off!

The fact that TDK ended with Dent still the good guy and Batman now the bad guy could mean that Dent will make a triumphant return from the dead in #3, be an even bigger hero than before, and lead the crusade against Batman. One of the more interesting issues raised in the film was the question of whether Bruce Wayne needs Batman more than Gotham does (even though the movie seemed to show he was willing and eager to quit, Rachel was right that he had his chance and didn't take it). Anti-Batman hysteria could force his hand in that regards.

I have enough faith left in America to believe that, if Ratner were to direct the third one, Americans would rise as one to kill him, much like Gotham tried to kill the Batman snitch guy.

jester,

i don't think that the film legitimately raised the question of whether gotham or bruce wayne needed batman more. it might have touched on the idea that wayne needs batman, but i don't think it at all raised that particular question.

similarly i don't think that rachel at any point said that he had a chance to quit, let alone had a chance and passed it up.

Yeah I was actually wondering how much a third movie would need a villain for a large bit of it considering how much it's set up as anti-Batman time. It just seemed like to me that Batman would go away for a bit, things would inevitably get worse, and some ambitious criminal would fill the void. Sort of like Hancock I guess, although it makes me cringe to say that.

Honestly - I was never a big Heath Ledger fan...but this was one of the most amazing performances Ive ever seen! Just so sick...in more ways then one.

Also - this is one of the best movies Ive seen in a long time - and the best Batman movie ever (and its not even close).

I havnt read this entire thread (wayyy toooo long obv)...but any ideas on who will play the Joker in the next movie? Any ideas? I dont think anyone can top Heaths performance - which (imo) topped Jacks Joker performance in the original. (thought I'd never say that tbh)

Is Batman not now the villian though since he was being blamed for the deaths while Two Face was made out to be a hero?

Allow me to elucidate like the central concept of the film. You see Young Bruce as a wee lad was a firsthand witness to the contravention of a covenant upon which our society is founded. Thou shall not kill. So yea his parents got sliced up and young Bruce probably got all emo for a phase. But then he realized that inaction = complicity etc etc and transformed into Batman in order to safeguard this societal covenant. SOP became apprehend villain, smack him up a bit, deliver some pithy lines, throw him in the clinker. EZ game, justice served. Ah but then he's pitted against the Joker, who represents Batman's philosophical antithesis.

Joker's message is simple: "everything burns". He's the avatar of all the men who, as Michael Caine's character put it, just want to watch the world burn. His nihilism and pessimistic view of human nature militate against the established order where everything goes according to plan. So when he sees Gotham becomes more "civilized", more orderly, more law-abiding as a result of Batman's efforts, he decides to re-introduce anarchy.

SPOILERS BELOW

Hence his attempt to assassinate the four guarantors of public order: judge, commissioner, DA and mayor. His aim is to show that his outlook on the world is true and Batman's is false. He wants to show that "when the chips are down, these civilized people will eat each other", whereas Batman clings tenaciously to the belief that people are inherently good. So, in a sense, Batman vs. Joker is really a Manichean struggle twixt Freud's Eros and Thanatos, a struggle between the human tendency towards cohesion, unity and order and the drive towards death and destruction. This said, I think it's easy to see why Batman can't kill Joker and why the Joker knows he can't. Why do you think the Joker keeps saying "do it, do it, do it" when Batman is speeding towards him on the bike? Cuz he knows that his blood on Batman's hands would symbolize the negation of ALL the principles upon which Batman and the Eros drive depend. How twistedly fitting that Joker's death would also be his triumph?

Towards the end of the movie, when Batman and the Joker go toe-to-toe, the Joker tells Batman that Harvey Dent's corruption was easy because madness, (Thanatos), is like gravity...all it takes is a little push. Sounds like a crazy line from a crazy guy, but if you think about it has this not been proven time and time again throughout the annals of human history esp. the blood-soaked history of the 20th century? You put 'civililzed' people in dire situations and Thanatos takes over.

Which is why, as the gap widens between rich and poor and WMD technology become more accessible, it's looking more and more like gg humanity.

this movie was sooooo good imo.

i thought the storyline was better than the first one cuz there isn't any slow background info.

oh and fwiw, i thought katie holmes was better than maggie g.