"The Dark Knight" - Sort of less impressed!

[Danny]

its better than batman begins, that film sucks.

[Neil]

^ Here we ago again with the binary opinion stuff How can anyone wishing to be taken seriously use that sort of description on a well made, well crafted film? To me it just comes across as ill-considered, illogical and unfair. I actually prefered Batman Begins The final 10 mins lets it down a little bit, but as an overall 'emotional' experience, I'd rather watch it to 'The Dark Knight' I recon...

[Danny]

^ Here we ago again with the binary opinion stuff How can anyone wishing to be taken seriously use that sort of description on a well made, well crafted film? To me it just comes across as ill-considered, illogical and unfair. I actually prefered Batman Begins The final 10 mins lets it down a little bit, but as an overall 'emotional' experience, I'd rather watch it to 'The Dark Knight' I recon... because in dark knight there is some semblance of 'worlds greatest detective'. if i wanted to watch a film about a wealthy american guy becoming a ninja id watch daredevil again. -and for the record the plot is much worse for begins, its a terrible origins film that gained praise because of the batman films that preceded it, it looked like "big boys batman" in comparison. The villain was ineffectual and bland, as was bales performance. I never cared about any of the characters and there progression felt artificial and numb. There was a better movie contained in just the harvey twoface subplot of dark knight than begins.

[bassman]

I think it's pretty naive to think that Heath Ledger's death didn't have a huge marketing impact on TDK. First off, he was already singled out (before he died!) about how unfit he was for the role and how it wouldn't work. Then once he died everyone started saying how this was his best role, and how sad it was his career was cut short etc. etc, you all remember. We live in a vastly more media and information centered society now than we did in 1984. Everyone's online now. TDK was also a major blockbuster aiming for the high concept. The Twilight Zone was not. Without Heath Ledger's death there's no way this film would've made as much money as it did. If I'm not mistaken it's the third highest grossing film ever? Come on, use your head. And the film is way too long by the way, and not all that exciting all the time. Well if you ask me, it's pretty naive to think Ledger's death is what brought the film to the heights it reached. One of the things was the role of The Joker in and of itself. The character hadn't been on screen for twenty years and most people foolishly thought Nicholson's was the end of the line. So when Ledger was announced, many fanboys thought it was a poor casting decision. But then, as you mentioned, word started leaking out about what he was doing. We got a voiceover trailer, followed by a full length trailer MONTHS before he died. At this point the hype train was already rolling strong and everyone could see that he was taking it in an all new direction and the internet was buzzing with anticipation. Anyone else remember when that trailer hit? You could go to Martha Stuart's website and there was talk about it. But the biggest contributor to TDK's success was Batman Begins. The film stumbled through it's theatrical run. It didn't do horribly, but it definitely didn't make the numbers you would expect of such a film. It kinda dragged in and licked the wounds of a dead franchise that many people still associated with 1997's Batman and Robin. Then Begins hit DVD with 125+ million in sales, indicating a surge of interest from the theatrical run. People were starting to realize that this was in no way associated with the films of the past. Then of course you have it also airing on TV what seems like once a week. So the first film kept building and building all the way up to the release of the next film, TDK. Not to mention TDK is the first ever to utilize the IMAX film format for a motion picture. That obviously also helped bring it to a larger total. Now....do I think some people saw the film out of a morbid curiousity surrounding Ledger's death? Sure. Absolutely. Do I think this small amount of people would make up over a billion dollars? No...that's not possible. If anything, the curiosity surrounding his death was the LEAST contributing factor to it's success. A contributing factor nevertheless, but the least.

[Neil]

because in dark knight there is some semblance of 'worlds greatest detective'. if i wanted to watch a film about a wealthy american guy becoming a ninja id watch daredevil again. -and for the record the plot is much worse for begins, its a terrible origins film that gained praise because of the batman films that preceded it, it looked like "big boys batman" in comparison. The villain was ineffectual and bland, as was bales performance. I never cared about any of the characters and there progression felt artificial and numb. There was a better movie contained in just the harvey twoface subplot of dark knight than begins. We'll have to disagree there I'm afraid... I can see good and less-good (don't want to use 'bad' as it wouldn't really be accurate) in both films. But as an overall 'experience' personally I rate 'Begins' better. Now I can totally see why others may prefer 'The Dark Knight.' But I really cannot understand how anyone (logically) can use the term 'sucks' for either film, when clearly they're both well made solid films. Maybe one or both are not to ones liking, but none-the-less, common sense should dictate 'suck' is rather unfair and unfounded. Previously I'd give them both a 9/10. But at the moment, 'The Dark Knight' has just dropped down a bit. eg: 8/10.

[LouCipherr]

I can think of hundreds of examples in music where death has skyrocketed not only popularity but sales too, but we're saying now the same thing cannot be applied to movies and their sales, eh?

[bassman]

I'm beginning to think some peopledon't really understand how much a BILLION dollars really is. Sometimes films, worthy or not, just become huge events. Look at Avatar. While I don't find it to be awful like some, I don't see how it went on to make as much as it did. Same with Titanic or LOTR. They went on to make these insane amounts of money becuase they turned into social events. They became water cooler discussion topics. Batman films were always huge events. This one was going to be huge regardless of Ledger's death. As I said before, I'm sure his death helped make the film some money and gain a bit of popularity, but if you think it made it to a billion bucks because of that alone.......you're just jumping on the "cool to hate" and "going against the grain" bandwagons. That's the end of my two cents, anyway....

[LouCipherr]

I'm beginning to think some peopledon't really understand how much a BILLION dollars really is. That's ok, I'm beginning to think some people have no idea what death can do to push sales of a movie. No one said it made TDK a "billion dollars" my friend. ...and you just said in this last post that "They went on to make these insane amounts of money becuase they turned into social events. They became water cooler discussion topics. Batman films were always huge events." but a few posts prior, didn't you say that BB didn't do well when it was first released? what kind of 'social event' was that?

[JonOfTheShred]

I really, REALLY hated the Dark Knight. It was extremely boring, and I felt like their attempt at making it as 'realistic' as possible sucked all creativity out of the project. Definitely the most overrated movie of the last decade, perhaps of all-time.

[bassman]

...and you just said in this last post that "They went on to make these insane amounts of money becuase they turned into social events. They became water cooler discussion topics. Batman films were always huge events." but a few posts prior, didn't you say that BB didn't do well when it was first released? what kind of 'social event' was that? I also said in that post that BB suffered because of Batman & Robin. Before and up to the release of B&R the previous franchise films WERE huge events. It was always about who would play the next villain. Begins brought it back to that "watercooler" status post-release. I'm still wondering what happened to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The exact same death, actually DURING production, yet it didn't do a fraction of the business. Funny how that works.

[LouCipherr]

Puh-lease. How did I know you were going to once again name that movie. Those two movies were a far cry from each other. There was "hype" behind TDK, which when Ledger died, it pushed curiosity & hype into the stratosphere. What "hype" or "excitement" was there behind "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus"? Oh yeah, NONE. I never even heard of this flick 'till WAY after it came out. Why? Oh yeah, because they hype around TDK clouded everything around Ledger. So, since you tend not to believe in death pushing sales, lets take a look at some music for comparison (because I'm more into music than movies, so it's my forte') Example #1: Jimi Hendrix: He died on 9/18/70 - With that in mind, since 1991 (when Soundscan officially started to properly "count" record sales), he's sold 15.5 MILLION albums. You do realize Hendrix was popular, but not THAT popular, until after he died, correct? he was never considered a "guitar god" by MOST peopple until AFTER he croaked. Sure, many guitarists thought so, but that's about it - until AFTER his death. 15.5 million Hendrix units moved at 15.99 (average price of a cd near me unless you catch it on sale or on first week of release) is almost $240 million in record sales. Remember, that doesn't include the years from 1970 when he died 'till 1991. EASILY this man has sold half a billion dollars worth of albums - a number he would've NEVER hit had he still been alive today... but death had no impact on his sales, right? Example #2: Kurt Kobain - Died in 1994. Ok, here's an example of someone with some SERIOUS hype behind them. Since 1991 (which does include 3 years before he shot himself), Nirvana albums have sold 24.9 million. At my 15.99 example, that's almost $400 million in sales since he died. NO artist continues to sell records at such a clip had there not been a shit-ton of "hype" behind the machine (hype includes 'death'). We all know Cobain had a shit-ton of hype behind him now don't we? He certainly wasn't a prodigy of the guitar, and even though I despise this bozo with a passion, he had a knack for songwriting and had the "hype" behind him of being leader of the "grunge" movement. His death by all means pushed sales higher than they would have ever been. I don't think anyone can argue that point. Example #3: Michael Jackson - died in 2009. Lets just say this: "Jackson, the last pop superstar whose fame rivaled that of Elvis Presley or The Beatles, is again experiencing a surge of popularity after his sudden death. More than 2.3 million Michael Jackson albums have sold since his death, and his Number Ones album is the top-selling record (though it's ineligible for the Billboard 200 because it isn't a new release. Jackson, who became famous at age 11 as the lead singer of the Jackson 5, is best known for his 1982 album, Thriller, and the string of hits that came from it, including Billie Jean." but, excitement and intrigue due to his death is no reason for this surge in sales since 2009 (even though they state it right in the article I pulled this from). I realize it's not "a billion dollars" (then again, no one claimed TDK made a BILLION because of the hype, it's just claimed it helped skyrocket the sales of the movie) - but the point here is to show how death drives sales, and extremely well under the right conditions. This is just 3 examples of MANY. James Brown, Johnny cash, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley - all of their albums surged in sales after their death and many continue to do so and sell at an unheard of rate in 2011. Why is it soooo hard to believe that Ledgers death could be a major force in driving the sales of TDK? Does this pattern only work in music and not movies? Funny how that works, isn't it? Again, no one is saying Ledger wasn't a fantastic joker, and no one is saying that the movie wouldn't have done well in every single market - but to honestly believe his death didn't have a MAJOR impact on the sales of certain movies (just like certain musical artists) is just being intentionally naive.

[bassman]

We'll just have to agree to disagree. It looks now that we both agree the film was highly anticipated BEFORE his death and that was my point. It was going to be huge regardless. As I said many times, his death no doubt helped it a bit, but we'll just have to disagree one what amount it helped. You say it was his death, I say the film just happened to become an event. Much like Avatar, sometimes these things just hit the right time and do extremely well. BTW....I was never debating the quality of his role or the film. Just the numbers. To me...it's naive to think it made the numbers it did because of his death, when his death clearly didn't help the other. Again, agree to disagree.

[LouCipherr]

We'll just have to agree to disagree. It looks now that we both agree the film was highly anticipated BEFORE his death and that was my point. It was going to be huge regardless. As I said many times, his death no doubt helped it a bit, but we'll just have to disagree one what amount it helped. Fair enough. BTW....I was never debating the quality of his role or the film. Just the numbers. To me...it's naive to think it made the numbers it did because of his death, when his death clearly didn't help the other. I know, but I wanted to make it perfectly clear - I had no issues with his role or his acting. I just can't believe that even with examples all over the entertainment industry that pople (not just you) can't see how much death can really help a film (or album) get pushed way past what it would have been. When you say his death "didn't help one film but did the other" - i'm sure if we broke down Hendrix's record sales, most of those came from "Smash Hits" (his greatest his collection) or "Electric Ladyland" and not every single one of his records. So again, it's certain albums whose sales would spike, not all. Just like with Ledger, TDK took off, while Imaginarium did not. It's just a product of what was at the forefront when he croaked. Imaginarium was certainly not at the forefront of the Ledger hype when he died. TDK was.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Oh oh oh, WTF you can agree to disagree with him, but when I praise Piranha you say NO FUCKING WAY.... WTH?

[LouCipherr]

Oh oh oh, WTF you can agree to disagree with him, but when I praise Piranha you say NO FUCKING WAY.... WTH? Because bassman is a smart dude - you on the other hand... I wonder about you. Chantix. Love of Piranha... that shit adds up to you being looney.