The Rachel/Dent decision is a question of emotion VERSUS morals. If he chose the emotional side, he would pick Rachel because he loves her. If he was following his moral code of what he thinks is best for Gotham, he would save Dent, because he believes they need that White Knight, or at least likes to pretend he thinks that... he bows to his emotional connection, showing he is a man first and a hero second, and Joker knew he would do that, he was playing him.

I don't think it works that way. This isn't a matter of pitting emotion against morality. If you wish to insist that emotions and morality are both in play in the situation, then they are thus simultaneously. Whether Batman makes a decision based on his emotions and/or morals is beside the point. The issue is that the situation is fundamentally and inescapably a moral one, and everything else operates within that framework.

Also, em, was I the only one who felt nothing for any of the characters? I mean, I didn't feel sorry for Rachel or Harvey or Batman or anyone else.

That's part of what I meant, but there is more to it, I think. But I haven't completely thought it out.


Superhero films in general tend to have a capitalist bend to them.

@Box

Will point towards 4 things in your post.

You're coupling everything with a moral decision. Joker's decision to not consider the morality in his decisions does not put him outside of it ... he still exists within its realms. However, for a single person, and this is ofcourse debatable, morality can disappear. Morality at least to me, is a man made thing and exists differently for everyone. While collectively, one can say that all human beings have a moral code, individually speaking, considering the fact that morality is something specific to the human being results in a person realizing that absolute or universal morality does not exist. Joker had no concern for his life, of other lives, his actions, other people's actions. none of his actions were defined by a moral premise even if they may have incorporated them.

as far as your moral definition goes, you provided an incomplete link to it. by the definition you've outlined, choosing between closing a door right now or continuing to munch of my sandwich becomes a moral delimma too if i can only do both. The first line of that link states



My argument here is that there is no moral requirement here at all. its purely an emotional one. choosing between 2 situations such as those does not yield a moral delimma because both can be equally quantified or trumped by emotions, which even in law can be defended as temporary insanity. to have a moral delimma, you must have a choice where 2 moral requirements must be weighed against each other to yield which one is morally correct or wrong, a decision that may vary depending on who you ask.

Joker didn't care about Gordon's family. he walked out of that room and didn't care about 2 face anymore or his actions because his purpose in there was done. he had introduced chaos into his life and those of others by turning him into someone who left choices upto chance. what he specifically did beyond that was irrelevant.

Finally, its not like i don't see moral delimmas in this film. I think the entire film contains moral questions here and there. i feel you're looking too much into them. not everything happening in the movie was about moral choices that somehow amounted to pedestrian choices as you wish to call them. The movie dealt with what many considered black and whites, a large area of gray and a lot of choices which were not about picking the right one but more about picking the lesser of the 2 evils. Even someone like Lucious was forced into this when he went ahead with something he hated but saw why in this urgency, he was willing to give the sonar thing this one time chance.
but again, i'm drifting into qualifying the moral questions here which is again, arguable. i'm just saying that it doesn't seem to me that either the film makers or others really cared as much about the morality points as you and in some cases, it seemed pretty clear that questions of morality didn't even exist.

Yeah, it seems to me Box missed a lot of the points of the film, and yes it was a great film, and quit calling people having bad tastes for saying so.

Keep rockin' out Box. Even if you didn't "love" the film, your analysis was very interesting (as they usually are). Most people are getting too caught up in the hype. I would be a bit miffed if Box came in here and gave a D with no explanation. But he gave a few hundred words on his thoughts (which, btw, was a B friggin plus).

Chill out guys.

I would be ok if he simply had a disagreement with its moral take, but to go off saying people are wrong in calling it a great film or having bad taste or saying its univsersal praise shows how stupid the masses are just pushes it a little too far, in the only way Box can.

Jesus, with all the analysis one would think this was a review thread to a David Lynch film.

I know! Seriously isn't that the point of art? You may disagree with its morals or its themes, but in the end if it makes you think that deeply, hasn't it done its purpose and then some. Hell the way Box writes about the film you'd think he gave it an A but disagreed with its themes which kept it away from an "A." Hell it sounded like he praised the film.

David Lynch movies aren't that deep.

I haven't seen much of his work, so I can't comment.

But Nolan's works are all pretty much thought-provoking, even Batman Begins on the topic of fear.

TDK is dense, like uranium. You're not far off.

Sorry I didn't post everything from this post, but I wanted to address some of your responses.

The Joker isn't Nietzsche's Superman, and I doubt it was Nolan's intention that he functioned that way. I was thinking the Joker is more like a Greek God along the lines of Pan trying to return to the original void of Greek Chaos. I don't equate chaos with Good or Evil just another state of being. If that is ignorant, I apologize for not being that well versed in philosophy or morality. I have never studied either subject.

I think you are reading too much into the Joker's motivation, when the Joker is really being used as more of a prop in this movie to get Batman into sticky moral situations.

Michael Caine stated something like "Superman is how America sees itself, and Batman is how the world sees the U.S." Before I saw the movie, I thought it meant something completely different, than what I did after seeing the movie.

When you were talking about the 1940's Batman, he used to be called The Bat-man, because there was much less difference between him and the villains than has been shown in the movies. Part of the background of the story at that time was the concern that The Bat-man was too good at what he did, if he didn't try so hard the criminals wouldn't be so violent and hell bent for revenge and destruction, with civilians being collateral damage. This mob mentality created a certain dislike and distrust towards The Bat-man, which this movie tries to recreate by the Joker publicly challenging Batman to turn himself in.

These movies are allegories for our times, in the use of surveillance, for instance. Fox is uncomfortable with spying on Gotham's citizens, but he does it anyways. Alfred talks about burning an entire forest to catch a single thief. If you destroy one way of life even if you have "good" intentions, you may create something that is much worse. You have a problem with how the characters are incorporated into the script, which is totally valid. I don't have the same problem if the transition isn't seemless (even quite clunky in some ways). My biggest problem is many things or scenes are unbelievable, even allowing for a comic book movie.

I was at first unsettled by the movie and what audiences were embracing, but I can't fault with a big Summer movie that grapples with ideas that don't get much public airing in any forum these days. I don't think you are giving it enough credit for many of the ideas it as least broaching, even if you think they are pedestrian or clumsily executed. Perhaps, I am giving it too much credit.

Which is the genius of this movie. If you were at all intrigued by the movie, you have to see it again, to catch thing you missed the first time. People talk about it being too fast, but again that just makes one almost forced to see it more than once.

After reading Box's thoughts on the Joker, I really do believe he missed the character. The Joker doesn't have a set of morals, he isn't amoral, he has no morals! Everything he does is for the moment, he does things why? Because he thinks he is hilarious! He, like Baba said, lives purely for the moment, much like chaos. It doesn't have any plans, and the Joker does what he thinks is best at the time, or what is the most morbidly hilarious thing. Some of his jokes are more complex than others, but he doesn't have a plan, but sometimes he speaks as though he does, he really is speaking out of his ass. The only moment that captures this is when he says, "I'm like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I got one."

And Baba is right, Dent isn't torn between morals, he knows what is moral, and he knows what he emotionally wants to do. Much like us all. I will say the Joker is a more fun character to watch, but the better theme does rest in Dent.

Mdana, you give Box too much credit, you act like he is the be all end all opinion of the world despite he actually being in the minority.

Exactly. The first time around, all the hints flew right by. I didn't even realize Detective Wuertz was a mob mole by the movie's end.

Box watch this clip to better understand the Joker:

You pretty much nailed it.

I am reposting my very simple and pedestrian questions...compared to the Ancient Greek Philosospher debate that has raged on the past few pages, it is because of them that I feel my questions were lost in the shuffle and they have just been bugging me.

Just two small questions that may have been answered but it is kind of hard to look through 31 pages of reviews, so I will just ask and see if anyone knows the answers to these very small, nitpicky question.

1. Just curious for those of you with the script, did Heath Ledger improve a lot of his lines. I know he improvised the clapping when Gordon was appointed commisioner, but just curious if anything else was improvised.

2. When the mob is having their "group therapy session," or someone people may know this as when the Joker does magic. The Joker says to Michael Jai White's character, Cane, I believe that "the suit isn't fake, you should know you bought it." Does anyone have any theories as to what that mean? Did the Joker just kill one of his men and take his suit or did the Joker used to work for him? Any other ideas?

Box's snobbery is hypocritical considered he likes a lot of "Dumb, mindless films", like all of us...

No offense, Box...


Really the film is just as deep and complicated as a lot of those stupid art house pictures that get nominated for oscars, and its better then a whole lot of them.

1. Most great actors do. Case and point: Jack Nicholson (ironically)

2. The Joker stole 67 million dollars from the mobsters, he used that money to buy the suit.

Harley Quinn

Thank you on the suit question but improvsing does not mean you are a great actor and not all great actors improvie. Sean Penn never improvises, but that was not my question. My question was did Heath improvise of did Jonathan and Christopher write such a good script a la Tarintino/ Kevin Smith where it sounds improvised dialogue but it is really not.