Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
redirected from Main.TheDarkKnight
alt title(s): Dark Knight Trilogy; The Dark Knight; Batman Begins; Nolan Verse Christopher Nolan's and David S. Goyer's extremely successful reboot of the Batman film franchise, of which two films have been made so far and starred Christian Bale as The Caped Crusader.
Batman Begins
"A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, you become something else entirely... A legend, Mr. Wayne."
— Henri Ducard
The first film opens In Medias Res, with Bruce Wayne incarcerated in a Chinese prison. There, Henri Ducard arranges for his release, and offers Wayne a place in Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows. Ducard trains Bruce in the way of the ninja, and in overcoming his fear, while Bruce explains his Back Story. Upon discovering that the Ra's intends to completely destroy Gotham City, Bruce fights his way out and blows up the dojo. Bruce returns to Gotham, vowing to take back the city from the criminals; to this end, he combines his ninja training, his obscene wealth, his old fear of bats, and his access to his company's Wonderful Toys, to make himself into you-know-who. Batman makes his entrance by bringing mafioso Carmine Falcone to justice, but in doing so, discovers that Dr. Jonathan Crane has disturbing plans involving large quantities of a fear toxin. And the Scarecrow is acting on someone else's orders...
The Dark Knight
"Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
— Alfred Pennyworth
The second film begins a year later. Batman and his allies, Police Lieutenant James Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, are having real success against Gotham's organized crime by hitting them where it hurts: their money. The various mob leaders are so afraid of the Bat that, when a scarred psychopath in clown makeup shows up and offers to make their problems go away by killing the Batman, they accept. But once backed by the mob, the Joker decides that simply rubbing out the Batman won't be good enough: he aims to destroy Gotham City from within by corrupting its heroes, Batman and Harvey Dent—making their lives hell until either of them snaps...
As another note, the title is just The Dark Knight. It is not Batman: The Dark Knight, making it the first of the Batman films not to have the character in the title.
At this point, the third film has been confirmed, mainly by Gary Oldman, to be in the planning stages, and is set to be filmed next year. No one has any idea what it'll be called, but it's inevitable. In a recent interview , Michael Caine said the next villain would probably the Riddler.
A direct to video anime anthology, Batman: Gotham Knight is set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, although Christopher Nolan was not involved.
While the plots of the two films are original, they borrow many scenes and themes from the comicbook miniseries Batman: Year One and The Long Halloween. The series also takes many liberties with superficial aspects of the Bat-mythos, but in spite (or because) of these changes, Bat-fans widely consider this one of the best Batman adaptations, ever.
Viewers outside the comicbook fandom agreed, making the film series a resounding critical and commercial success. The Dark Knight in particular is the second-highest-grossing film of all time in the United States (second only to Titanic). It also has the distinct honor of being the first Comic Book movie to win an acting Academy Award, specifically by the late Heath Ledger for his monstrously frightening performance as The Joker. This posthumous honor of Best Supporting Actor was claimed by his family on Sunday the 22nd of February, 2009.
This film series provides examples of:
- Author Existence Failure: Heath Ledger.
- Note that Ledger died after he'd finished his work on the film, but before the film opened in theaters (and before he could do appearances for the media blitz surrounding the film).
- Or appear in any of the possible sequels to Dark Knight as stated before Ledger's death.
- Adaptation Decay: While by & large, the films are of stellar quality, their portrayal of The Scarecrow is a real step down from some of his previous appearances. Instead of a strong, self-motivated, morally ambiguous Mad Scientist who'll let nothing, especially ethics, get in the way of his research, he comes off more as a worm trying to cozy up to whichever Big Bad is going to give him the best deal, while his brief appearance in the second film has him dealing drugs.
- On the other hand, he did take Batman down and light him on fire.
- One could also say Pragmatic Adaptation. It's more realistic for a corrupt scientist to sell his illegal, destructive invention to whoever gives him the best deal than being completely amoral For Science. Even then, the film made him just as vicious as his previous appearances.
- Could be said for Batman himself, mainly in The Dark Knight, where both his voice and costume distance far from what has been previously established, and in many's opinions for the worse.
- Although in terms of both masking his voice and turning himself into a figure of pure terror, snarling like a demon is one of the better options.
- Adaptation Distillation
- Adopt The Dog
- Alas Poor Scrappy: Rachel in The Dark Knight.
- All Star Cast
- Always Save The Girl: Deconstructed.
- Anvilicious: Did you know that Begins was about fear? They were pretty subtle about it. Also, did you know that The Dark Knight was about chaos?
- That's funny, because I was sure Begins was about the difference between heroism and wrath, and TDK was about the strength of human character, nobility and/or morality.
- Or, like, they were both about Order Versus Chaos, except, like, in completely opposite ways.
- Actually, Nolan has stated numerous times that the theme of Dark Knight is escalation, as hinted at the end of Begins.
- American Accents: The Joker has some kind of accent that's American, but what kind in particular is impossible to determine.
- It's obviously a Chicago accent, as was noted in nearly all of the reviews. It's not that hard to ascertain.
- Ancient Conspiracy: The League of Shadows
- Animated Adaptation: Batman: Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD Animesque anthology that bridges the gap between the first two films.
- Anti Villain: Two-Face
- Appropriated Appellation Two-Face
- Award Snub: A superhero movie was always going to have difficulty cracking into the Oscars, but this was made worse by the fact that most of the nominated movies (including the eventual winner) didn't receive nearly the amount of critical or public acclaim as The Dark Knight did, and yet The Dark Knight wasn't even nominated. It's said that the resulting outcry is at least partly responsible for the Academy deciding to nominate ten movies for Best Picture in 2010 instead of the traditional five.
- Awesome Yet Practical
- Axe Crazy: The Joker is the living embodiment of this trope.
- Bad Cop Incompetent Cop
- Badass Longcoat: Joker.
- Batman Gambit: Well, duh.
- Battle Butler: Alfred.
- Beard Of Evil: In Begins, both Ducard and Ra's al Ghul sport the fu manchu of villainy.
- Berserk Button: Joker always gets a lot more serious when someone calls him a "freak" or "crazy," in the first instance showing obvious agitation, and culminating in ordering a mob boss cut into pieces and fed to his pet dogs in a moment of rage. This is somewhat ironic given the character's usual sentiment in other media.
Sal Maroni: You're crazy.
Joker: I'm not. No, I'm not.
- Bittersweet Ending: Batman Begins.
- Blackmail: Subverted in Dark Knight when an accountant stumbles onto Bruce's secret:
Accountant: I want... ten million dollars a year, for the rest of my life.
Lucius Fox: Let me get this straight. You think that your client - one of the wealthiest, most influential men in the world - is secretly a vigilante, who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands... and your plan is to blackmail this person? [ smiles] Good luck.
Accountant: [clears throat] ... keep that....
- Bloodless Carnage: The Dark Knight may not feel "bloodless" due to various factors, but despite the brutality it shows very little blood. This may have been one of the factors that led to such a movie being rated PG-13.
- Body Double: Ra's al Ghul.
- Body Motifs: There is much emphasis on faces and masks in both films.
- Broad Strokes: The Gotham Knights shorts, due to being made by different people, have varying amounts of consistency with themselves or the films, such as the guy with the jetpack, or Batman being downright Bishounen in some of the shorts and lantern-jawed in others.
- Some of the wilder interpretations are due to one of the shorts consisting of kids giving their urban legend-style perceptions rather than actually being Batman. While the artwork varies widely, the characters themselves stay pretty consistent, including Batman himself.
- Broken Pedestal
- Bus Full Of Innocents
- The Cameo: US Senator Patrick Leahy shows up in The Dark Knight (the avowed lifelong fan's third such appearance to date) and talks back to the Joker during Bruce's cocktail party. Now that is a campaign platform.
- Catch Phrase: Joker's "Why so serious?". May overlap with This Is SPARTA. "Why... so... SERIOUS!?"
- LET'S PUT A SMILE ON THAT FACE!
- Chaotic Evil: The Joker in any adaptation is this, but this film takes it to the logical extreme.
"You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that tomorrow, a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan. But tell people that one little old mayor will die... well, then, everyone loses their minds!"
- Cheap Costume
- Chekhov's Gun: Too many to list. It was only surprising that the skyhook didn't make a second appearance in The Dark Knight.
- This troper believes that is a Chekovs Gun for the next film.
- The Combat Pragmatist: Nobody is an upstanding duelist in these movies, but the Joker is by far the least reserved fighter.
- Complete Monster: Incarnations of The Joker sometimes fall into this, but Heath Ledger is widely considered to be his cruellest and darkest depiction ever.
- Composite Character: The movies' versions of Loeb and Flass. The movies' Flass resembled the dark-haired, unshaven, overweight Harvey Bullock more that the comics version of Flass, who was blonde, clean-shaven, and muscular, though movie Flass did retain his comic counterpart's corruption. Likewise, the movies' Loeb only shares the name of the comics' character, resembling Michael Akins in both looks and personality (African-American, young, and honest) more than the comics's Loeb (Caucasian, old, and extremely corrupt).
- Crazy Awesome: Heath Ledger's interpretation of The Joker
- Crazy Enough To Work: Bet you never thought cell phones could be used to pull off such awesomeness, did you?
- That would be because they can't. Nobody cares, but still.
- It seems to be implied about halfway through the film that Bruce has been illegally distributing modified cell-phones through a secretive government contract. Makes the idea slightly more believable, but only slightly. And of course, the film is aiming for a verisimilitude of reality only, allowing for carefully controlled fantastical elements.
- I don't think it's too much of a stretch that they implanted a few pounds of C4 which the cellphone triggered.
- Conservation Of Ninjitsu: Batman (one inexperienced ninja) versus the League of Shadows (many experienced ninja). Guess who's going to win.
- Note that Bruce was already an accomplished unarmed fighter capable of wiping the floor with multiple opponents in the opening scene of the film. His additional training prior to the confrontation with the League of Shadows was intended to hone, refine and shape his abilities - Ra's al Ghul never intended for him to be a mook, so he's wasn't an 'inexperienced ninja'. Having said that, this trope does occur in several scenes throughout both movies.
- Continuity Nod: Scarecrow's appearance in the first act of The Dark Knight.
- Crazy Prepared: The Joker actually gives Batman a run for his money in The Dark Knight. Certainly in the "crazy" part.
- Crosses The Line Twice: The Joker spends the whole movie dancing back and forth across this line while laughing maniacally, amused by the fact you think there's a line in the first place.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Human decency emerges first from the "evil" boat of his "social experiment," as the Scary Black Man broke stereotype and tossed the detonator out of the window, sparing the lives on the boat of innocents.
- Jim Gordon reuniting with his wife after he was presumed dead.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome:
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: The Joker has oh so many, most of which Crosses The Line Twice; see the trope entry.
- One in particular has the Joker in a nurse's outfit, complete with a mini-skirt and wig. And then his reaction to the hospital not blowing up.
- "Would you please just give me a minute??" *takedown!*
- "So, which of you fine gentlemen would like to join our team? Oh. There's only one spot open right now, so we're gonna have… [breaks the stick in two] tryouts.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: The Joker's steadily rising one-note screech is very effective. Though Your Mileage May Vary as to whether it qualifies as "music".
- Cue Cullen: As the trope entry reminds us, a lot of people were leery about the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker until they saw clips of his performance.
- This troper thought the whole thing was a bad idea, until they said Christian Bale was the new Dark Knight. "Oh. Well if it's him....."
- Also, the idea of a Batman anime made some fans leery, until the name "Kevin Conroy" showed up.
- Damsel In Distress: Rachel, of course.
- Darker And Edgier: Than the previous movies, anyway...
- Deadline News: Mike Engel and his crew tempt fate by going to Gotham General Hospital to cover the evacuations. They wind up hostages of the Joker and forced to transmit a message for him, Engel actually reading a written statement on his behalf.
- When Batman storms Joker's lair at the end of the film, Engel is the first hostage he saves.
- Deconstruction: Especially in The Dark Knight. Batman is operating in the real world, where superhero armor has trade-offs between protection and flexibility. Gotham is as real a city as Hong Kong and doesn't have overly intimidating architecture. Ultimately the film can be seen as asking whether heroes (and human beings themselves) are motivated by abstract principles (Batman) or have no principles at all (The Joker, who is motivated by a desire to prove that everyone is corruptible and designs his 'social experiment' (the film's climax) to prove that very point). This is basically the same question that Watchmen asked ("What would motivate a real life Superhero?"), albiet The Dark Knight gives the opposite answer.
- Delayed Explosion: In The Dark Knight, when The Joker attempts to demolish Gotham General Hospital.
- Did Not Do The Research: Microwaves do not work that way! And neither do cell phones! Or police procedures! And neither for that matter does sonar! But, no one really cares.
- Unfortunately Cell Phones could be made to work that way.
- Aside from those things, most technology in the film is actually real or based on real things.
- Doesn't Like Guns: Batman, of course. Also, while Joker certainly isn't averse to using guns, he prefers knives because they're more personal.
- Does This Remind You Of Anything: The disturbingly realistic style in which exploding buildings and subsequent wreckage were shot can't help but evoke 9/11 somewhat. There's a reason people referred to Joker as a terrorist in the film.
- When 9/11 actually happened, everybody said it looked just like a movie.
- That's because Hollywood pyrotechnics and crashing 767s produce identical explosions, both being fuelled by petroleum.
- The use of unwitting Gotham residents' cell phones as a kind of sonar absolutely reeks of current political battles over the legality of wiretapping calls overseas. It seems to come out vaguely in favor of its use in extremely limited situations, but also recognizes that those uses must be accounted for as Lucius and Bruce destroy the surveillance device once the Joker is apprehended.
- Don't Think. Feel: Inverted. Bruce Wayne starts out driven by rage and guilt; the League of Shadows teaches him to use his head.
- Downer Ending: The Dark Knight. It's got a Downer Beginning and a Downer Middle as well. There's sort of an uplifting three-quarter point.
- Draco In Leather Pants: Some people insist on doing this to the Joker and Scarecrow. The fact that they're portrayed by Heath Ledger and Cillian Murphy respectively doesn't help.
- Dramatic Irony: Harvey believes that the police and Batman decided to save him instead of Rachel, when in reality, the Joker set it up such that they'd be saving the person they hadn't intended to save.
- Dressed To Kill: In Begins, Ducard kicks ass in a suit and tie the first and last time he fights Bruce Wayne. For that matter, Bruce at his fundraiser for Dent in The Dark Knight does it, too.
- Electric Boogaloo: Well, they sure as heck couldn't have called the second film Batman Begins 2, could they?
- Empty Promise: Harvey Dent makes one to Rachel.
- Ending Fatigue: At a little over two-and-a-half hours, The Dark Knight wears some viewers out in the final third. This is partly due to the Harvey Dent/Two-Face subplot being wrapped up after the defeat of the Joker, the Big Bad, in a sequence that is dialogue-driven as opposed to the action in the Joker's.
- It didn't help that Heath Ledger stole the show, diverting attention from a climax that was supposed to be about something else (namely HOW Wayne/Batman and Dent/Two-Face are two sides of the same coin).
- One feels like the Woobie scene between Bruce and Alfred, after Rachel's death is the end of the movie, and everything after that is a whole additional film. The Dark Knight is a double feature all by itself.
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Ensemble Darkhorse: Yes, the Joker is the Big Bad. But his name still appears in more of these tropes than Batman's.
- Evilly Affable: The Joker has long thrived on being this, but the fact that he is still funny despite the sheer number of vile acts he commits here may set a new standard for the trope.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: "He missed!" No. No he did not.
- Excuse Me Coming Through: People run to get out of Batman's way when he drives the Batcycle through a mall.
- Expansion Pack Past: Alfred seems to have led several very diverse lives.
- Expospeak Gag
- Fake Americans: In the first movie, Katie Holmes and Morgan Freeman are the only actual Americans, amid the Welsh Christian Bale, the English Gary Oldman and Tom Wilkinson, and the Irish Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson. There are more real Americans in the second film, but the Joker is played by Australian Heath Ledger.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The Batcave in the first movie. In the second, the Batcave is basically a big white room underneath some Wayne company property with some equipment, a computer, and an incinerator. Everything else pops out of the walls.
- Enthusiasm Versus Stoicism
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: And that is why the Joker's "social experiment" fails.
- Evil Is Stylish: The Joker loves elaborate sadistic choices, playing cards (both as his business card and signature at some of his killings), and dropping clues about his next targets. After he fails to kill Harvey Dent, he puts nametags on two men he killed reading "Harvey" and "Dent" the next night to taunt him. He also (sort of) suggests to Two-Face the use of the coin to determine who lives and dies, chaos being "fair" and all.
- Evil Laugh: The Joker both plays this straight and deliberately mocks it. Which is why he's The Joker.
- Exact Words: A peril of both working with and confronting the Joker.
- Eye Scream: "How about a magic trick? I'm going to make this pencil disappear."
- Face Death With Dignity: Ducard took his death rather well. The again, he is Ra's Al Ghul, who may or may not be immortal.
- The Faceless: In Dark Knight, Gordon's daughter Barbara (who becomes Batgirl in the comics) appears, but her face is never seen.
- This pissed off many fans to no end, as every scene with Gordon's son could have been done with Barbara.
- Arguably, this could be so that they could cast a new Batgirl later without having to worry about her looking the same
- Also an easy way to avoid Like You Would Really Do It, as of course Barbara would survive. But the son?
- Faking The Dead: Gordon's apparent demise in The Dark Knight.
- Earlier, Joker pulls this on Gambol. Much more predictable than Gordon's fakery, but clever nonetheless, though it's a Funny Aneurysm Moment for some.
- Fallen Hero: Harvey Dent.
- Family Unfriendly Aesop: The movie ends with Alfred, Bruce, and Gordon all concluding that sometimes a symbol matters more than the man behind the symbol, even if you have to take ethically troublesome steps to protect its power.
- Family Unfriendly Death: Specifically, the brutal subversion of the Final Speech. The Dark Knight is rated PG-13, probably because Nolan puts the killing blows off-screen. There's also surprisingly little blood in the film. Nevertheless, the amount of sheer menace and High Octane Nightmare Fuel the movie manages to wring out of its rating makes it arguably more terrifying than many R-rated Gorn-fests.
- Fast Roping: The Gotham SWAT team employs this trope to raid the Joker's HQ. Batman comes by later and when he realizes that the hostages and captors have switched clothes, he uses the same rappel lines they used to enter and knocks them out.
- Fetish Fuel: And no doubt that the denizens of the interwebs are going to crank out some highly disturbing fanfics thanks to the scene with Heath Ledger, the nurse's uniform, and the clown makeup.
- Fiction 500
- Final Speech: Brutally subverted with Rachel, who is killed mid-sentence.
- Finish Him: Ra's' final test in Begins. Bruce, of course, refuses, and then defeats a whole ninja school by himself in order to get away.
- Fingerprinting Air: Batman pulls a fingerprint from a computer reconstruction of a bullet that had been shot into a wall. Also an example of Did Not Do The Research, as there's no way a fingerprint could have gotten where it was on the bullet in the first place, and even if there was, it would have been destroyed from the heat of the explosion from being fired and the rifling inside the barrel, but even if it wasn't, it would have been scratched off after entering the wall, but even if it wasn't, the bullet wouldn't have fragmented in to a dozen pieces, it would have warped and pancaked, distorting the print beyond usability.
- Frangible bullets will shatter, but the fingerprint thing stands.
- Batman needs not your air. He needs not your research either.
- I always just figured that the fingerprint was engraved on the bullet or something...
- Flower From The Mountaintop: The blue flower at the base of the mountain range, which Bruce must carry to the top.
- Foe Yay: The Joker and Batman, especially with the Joker's "You complete me" line. It's a bit lampshaded... the Joker very obviously intends this, whether it's to mess with Batman's head or because he thinks it's funny. Probably both.
- "I think you and I are destined to do this forever..."
- Foil: Most of the villains are foils for Batman.
- Batman (Vigilante) vs. Ra's al Ghul (Knight Templar)
- Batman (Dark but good) vs. The Joker (Light — clowns are supposed to be happy! — but evil)
- Batman (Hero) vs. Two-Face (Fallen Hero)
- Batman (uses symbols to inspire fear in criminals) vs Scarecrow (uses fear to accomplish crimes)
- For The Evulz: The Joker's motive.
- Freudian Excuse: Mocked by the Joker, who gives differing accounts of how he got his scars, and though that, why he's the monster he is. By the end of the film, the Joker has no origin, he simply is.
- Funny Aneurysm Moment: As listed at the trope entry, Heath Ledger's death launched a few of these. Like "I think you and I are destined to do this forever." and the scene where Joker is brought to a mobster in trashbags and believed to be dead.
- There's also the fact that the mansion used for filming Wayne Manor burnt down a few years later.
- Good Cop Bad Cop: The Joker accurately predicts that Gordon intends to use a form of this interrogation technique. However, he's caught off guard by discovering that the bad cop is
Batman the goddamn Batman...even though he still doesn't talk until he wants to.
- Good Is Boring: Subverted, in that the one who thinks so and stands up for the opposite is the Joker.
- Goomba Stomp: In this case, Batman does it to a van.
- Graceful Loser: Ra's al Ghul. When he is beaten, he just closes his eyes and accepts his demise after the battle in the monorail.
- Groin Attack: How Rachel avoids having a smile put on her face by the Joker. Disturbingly, the Joker is barely fazed. He's pretty obviously a major masochist; his response to pain is nothing like normal.
- Hannibal Lecture: Do not talk to the Joker. Talking to the Joker can lead to listening to the Joker, and that will be very bad for your mind. You'd be better off snorting lines with the Scarecrow.
- Heartbroken Badass: Bruce Wayne after Rachel's death.
- He Knows Too Much: Joe Chill learned more about Falcone than the latter would have liked.
- Hello Attorney: Both Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent
- Heroic Wannabe: The Dark Knight has a gang of doughy vigilantes with bat-costumes and guns. One ends up being a victim of The Joker.
- The Hero's Journey: After being told of a chance to join the League of Shadows, Bruce climbs the mountains and manages to fight off Ra's Al Ghul. After defeating the League to return to Gotham, he gains weaponry, becomes Batman, enlists the help of Lucius Fox and saves Gotham from the League, freeing the people from chaos.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: William Fichtner's cameo as the bank manager.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: A lot of familiar voices are heard in Gotham Knight, most prominently Batman.
- Hey You Haymaker: In The Dark Knight, see trope page for the quote.
- Hollywood Darkness: Pretty egregious in the party scene in The Darth Knight, where the "night" is an obvious blue filter over daylight.
- Honor Before Reason
- Ho Yay: Three words: "You complete me."
- Also, check out Bruce's face whenever Harvey's talking. The man looks like he's in love.
- HSQ: Extremely high, especially for The Dark Knight.
- The Hyena: The Joker, of course
- Hype Backlash: The Dark Knight is currently (when you don't adjust for inflation) the second-biggest box office success of all time in the United States, so yes, this trope has been invoked.
- I Am Spartacus: When the Joker threatens to keep killing people until Batman unmasks and turns himself in, Harvey Dent makes a public confession that he is Batman and surrenders to the police.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Deadshot in Gotham Knight. When we meet him, he headshots a guy from what looks like a mile away. Through a window, into a crowded party, through a sky filled with fireworks, and from a moving Ferris wheel.
- Indy Ploy: The Joker claims that he's making it all up as he goes along. Whatever plan he might have in his head is only known to him.
- Informed Ability: completely averted with Harvey Dent. The first part of "The Dark Knight" shows the audience how he has effectively crippled the mob through lawful means (making his fall from grace that more tragic).
- In Medias Res
- Ironic Echo: "Didn't you get the memo?"
- "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.."
- The whole conversation between Lucius Fox and Chang is a banter of Ironic Echo.
- It Got Worse: It starts with the DA and his assistant/fiancée kidnapped and strapped to time bombs and just goes downhill from there.
- It Was His Sled: Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face. Seriously people, the character has existed since 1942. There's a statute of limitations on this sort of thing.
- We all knew he would, it was just a question of if he would do it in the The Dark Knight or be saved for the Big Bad of the next picture.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When Batman beats up the Joker. This case comes with a surprise. The Joker had always been planning to give up accurate locations...he just lied about who was where to screw with Batman's head.
- Batman also throws a man off a roof, breaking both his legs, in order to get information.
- Joker Immunity: Played straight in The Dark Knight, despite being Darker And Edgier than the previous film series, which killed him off. Of course, if he does reappear, there will be the question of who gets to
endure fan hatred for not being Heath Ledger play him...
- Kick The Dog
- Killed Mid Sentence: Rachel Dawes.
- "Harvey. Harvey, listen to me. It's going to be okay. Listen. Some -" BOOM
- Kill It With Fire: Attempted by Scarecrow, on Batman, and done successfully by Joker, on mob accountant Lau. It's horrifying both times.
- Knife Nut: Joker. He even explains why. Though he isn't entirely averse to using guns.
- Knight In Sour Armor: Jim Gordon, especially in the first movie.
- Knights Templar: The League of Shadows.
- Large Ham: Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne had to be a ham, but he does it as Batman as well; that voice must require some pastilles) and Heath Ledger.
- Laughably Evil: Again, the Joker.
- Magnificent Bastard: The Joker is a mass-murdering, Complete Monster Clown. There should be nothing appealing about him at all. He's also ''really'' funny.
- Manipulative Bastard: Salvatore Maroni, a.k.a. the only person to profit from The Joker's presence...until he forgets to put on his seatbelt. The Joker too, especially in the way he manipulates Harvey Dent.
- Marty Stu: Subverted in the person of Harvey Dent, a handsome-as-hell, lantern-jawed, blue-eyed, blond-haired manly man's man who waltzes into the movie to steal both Bruce Wayne's girlfriend and Batman's crime-fighting thunder. He's quick-witted, fearless, and willing to continuing examining a witness who's just tried to kill him in open court. The subversion kicks in (and hard) when Dent incurs a traumatic loss similar to the one that created Batman. Unlike Bruce, he doesn't react in the most constructive fashion, and loses his Marty Stu polish accordingly.
- McNinjas: Batman himself. Plus the League of Shadows in Begins are quite a diverse group.
- Memetic Mutation: All together now — "Why... so... serious?"
- Messianic Archetype: The unselfish Bruce Wayne of this universe. Somehow, this doesn't stop him from maintaining the Jerkass Facade of being a Rich Idiot With No Day Job at the same time. Probably he acts like he wants to when he's Bruce, and as he feels he should when he's Batman.
- Flip that - he acts like he wants to when he's Batman, and as he feels he should when he's Bruce; remember, he'd do nothing but cave in badguy heads all day long if he could.
- Obviously, someone's taking the 'Jesus clearing out the temple' approach to Messianic Archetype.
- Harvey Dent at first seems to be this. Everyone in Gotham seems to view him as a living saint. Have you ever seen a politician so universally loved? I think literally everyone voted for him other than criminals (admittedly that could result in a close election in Gotham). By the end of the film, however...let's just say the polish is off the halo.
- Mind Rape: Of all the Joker's acts of callous villany and casual disregard for human dignity, none is worse than his turning of Harvey Dent into a vengeful monster by warping his mind during his vulnerable time of grief over Rachel's death.
- Misaimed Marketing: While not as bad as the Batman Returns fiasco, it's still jarring to see toys for kids being sold as tie-ins for The Dark Knight, a movie whose PG-13 rating is extremely lenient. With any luck, the overwhelming critical and financial success of the film will prevent this oversight from causing another slide into Camp silliness...
- Money To Burn: "I'm a man of simple tastes...dynamite...gunpowder...and gasoline. Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!" And what does he do with said items? (among other things) Why, what the trope says, of course...''literally''.
- Monster Clown: Joker, obviously.
- Multiple Choice Past: In a nod to the comics, the Joker gives several tragic yet incompatible backstories about himself. "Wanna know how I got these scars?"
- My Card: The Joker (it's... a joker)
- Mythology Gag: Several.
- The part in Begins where Batman escapes by using sonar to summon a swarm of bats is taken directly from Batman Year One.
- In The Dark Knight, Bruce asks Mr. Fox if his new suit can stand a dog attack. Fox says that it would certainly be able to stand up to a cat...
- Slightly before the previous example, when Bruce is describing his problems with the old suit, Fox sums up his complaints with "You'd like to be able to turn your head." None of the previous Batsuits allowed the actor wearing them to do this.
- And don't forget the Joker's crack about him and Batman being destined to do this forever.
- The Joker's constantly changing backstory (see: Freudian Excuse) is reminiscent of a quote in The Killing Joke, in which we are presented with a possible origin but later the Joker claims he doesn't remember what made him the way he is clearly or consistently:
- Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum was another reported inspiration. It contains a scene in which the Joker, on the phone with Batman, tricks him into thinking he's stabbed a nurse in the eye with a sharpened pencil (it's actually an April Fool's Day prank, to help hasten Batman's arrival at the asylum).
- During the press interview where Harvey Dent claims he is Batman, the most prominent of the news microphones says "News 26". Wasn't that the news channel in Batman The Animated Series?
- Many scenes in The Dark Knight are adapted from The Long Halloween (though their context or outcome is often very different): The mob's savings going up in flames; the ploy of transporting a target in police custody to draw out a would-be killer; Harvey Dent getting attacked in court by his own witness; the slogan "I believe in Harvey Dent".
- The Joker's sarcastic laugh at the Chinese guy's "safe" joke.
- Batman's eyes when using the sonar become hidden behind a white glare. In most depictions in the comics, the character's eyes are never seen when he's in costume, replaced by white slits.
- And of course, lest we forget: "What the hell are you?" "I'M BATMAN!"
- The Batman impersonator is taken from The Dark Knight Returns.
- Needle In A Stack OF Needles: Ducard's training, where he hides amongst his followers.
- Never Be A Hero: Subverted. The "Batman dopplegangers" were fighting with the intent to kill, so Batman had every reason to be upset.
- Also, they lacked the training or equiptment that Batman had, meaning it was only a matter of time before they got killed.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: Two-Face, with his talk of Chance being the only moral law in the world. The Joker would be a Nietzsche Wannabe, except that wouldn't nearly begin to encompass his craziness.
- Nightmare Fuel Unleaded: Literally. In Begins, The Scarecrow uses a fear-inducing toxin with terrifying results.
- The Joker. Just him being onscreen. And this is when he is NOT performing horrible acts as naturally as breathing air.
- Two-Face. How'd this movie get rated PG-13 again?
- The hallucinating prisoner who had a cell phone and a bomb stitched into his chest as a way for the Joker to smuggle them into police HQ.
- Not So Harmless: The Joker. Though aware of his crimes, at first Batman and the authorities just see him as "one man," and focus on bringing down the mobsters. The mobsters, for their part, regard him as a "nobody" as well...
- Obi Wan Moment
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Joker
- Order Versus Chaos: Played exactly backwards between the two films. To the League of Shadows, Batman represents chaos because he lets thieves and murderers live. The Joker represents chaos no matter what, and anybody who tries to stop him stands for order by default.
- The Other Darrin: Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes in Dark Knight, replacing Katie Holmes from Begins.
- Palantir Ploy: The Bat-Cell-Phone-Sonar machine.
- The Paragon
- The Pen Is Mightier: "How about a magic trick?"
- Psycho For Hire: The Joker.
- Psycho Strings: On the soundtrack the Joker's one-note theme is made mostly of these. (One note? You have to listen to it to understand.)
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
Sergeant Lieutenant Commissioner Gordon in both films.
- Rich Idiot With No Day Job: The most widely known example.
- The Reason You Suck Speech: The villains deliver some of the best ones ever.
- Rescued From The Scrappy Heap: Rachel Dawes in Dark Knight.
- Rousseau Was Right: See Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming. The movie's a little too complicated to be summed as "People are really nice," but generally speaking, yep, you heard me right. People aren't bastards. In a Darker And Edgier Batman movie.
- Rule Of Cool: A whole lot of stuff.
- Rule Of Three: The Joker's third "scar story" is subverted by Batman.
- The Sadistic Choice: Several in Dark Knight.
- Save The Villain: Played straight with Ducard, then subverted. Played straight with The Joker. Played straight and subverted with Two-Face, as Batman tries saving him but fails, and when that doesn't work takes actions that he knew would likely result in Two-Face's death...and did.
- Say My Name: "'Two-Face'. 'Harvey Two-Face'."
- Scare Chord
- Scary Black Man: Subverted in the Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.
- Scary Scarecrows: "Would you like to see my mask?"
- Scheherezade Gambit variant: In The Dark Knight, when The Joker is captured by the police. Using only his words, he manipulates a police officer into attacking him, then takes the officer hostage.
- Sequel Hook: Joker's calling card in the final scene of Batman Begins, and the fact Batman's a wanted criminal at the end of The Dark Knight.
- Shamgri La: The headquarters of the League of Shadows.
- Shoot The Bullet: Batman pulls one of these off in Gotham Knight, except since he doesn't use guns, he simply punches the bullet out of the air with the armored part of his gauntlet (because, you know, a batarang wouldn't be half as badass). This is a bullet fired from a high powered sniper rifle, from a train moving at full speed, towards a moving target.
- He doesn't punch it. The spikes on the gloves slice it in half. Shortly therafter, Deadshot shoots his Batarangs out of the air anyway.
- Shut Up Hannibal: Batman to the Joker.
- Shut Up Kiss: Harvey does this to Rachel in The Dark Knight.
- Smug Snake: Maroni. Just look at that smile◊.
- So Last Season: The batsuit from Batman Begins proving inadequate to the task in The Dark Knight. At least now he can move his neck for the first time in twenty years.
- Sorting Algorithm Of Evil: Scarecrow, one of the main villains from Batman Begins, was reassigned in the sequel to the head Mook of the Batman Cold Open.
- Squick: The "disappearing pencil" trick, the crook complaining of his insides hurting because of a cell phone and explosives inserted in his stomach which was CARVED OPEN AND STITCHED BACK TOGETHER... and let's not forget Two-Face.
- Stealth Hi Bye: Used often in The Dark Knight; sometimes to the point of physical impossibility. Also Lampshaded; "He does that."
- Stealth Pun: The Joker blocks a stretch of road with a vehicle on fire. It's a fire truck. Just another way the Joker Crosses The Line Twice.
- Also, by the end of the second act, the Batmobile had lost a wheel (the Batpod), and the Joker got away.
- Take A Third Option: Sadistically subverted with Rachel and Harvey. Played straight during the Prisoner's Dilemma in the film's climax.
- Taking The Bullet: Jim Gordon does this for the mayor. Later it's combined with Car Fu when the Batmobile takes a rocket propelled grenade for Harvey Dent's paddy wagon.
- And when Bruce Wayne uses the Lamborghini to block a pickup truck from smashing the police SUV.
- Take My Hand
- Tearjerker
Little Bruce Wayne: Oh Alfred, I miss them so much!
Alfred: So do I, Master Bruce. So do I.
- The Dark Knight brought this troper to tears when after a huge buildup of suspense no one is truly rescued from The Sadistic Choice between Rachel and Harvey — and just for good measure the police station is destroyed too.
- "Give it to me, and I'll do what you should have did ten minutes ago."
- "Why is he running, Dad?" "Because we have to chase him."
- Even Gotham Knight has one, in "Working Through Pain". Ever seen a little girl get kicked out of her own house by her father for doing nothing wrong?
- Tempting Fate: "He's going to need something a lot bigger then that to get through this truck!" Cue the freaking rocket launcher.
- That Man Is Dead: "Doctor Crane is not here right now. But if you'd like to make an appointment..."
- Theme Music Power Up: Don't ya notice everytime Batman is about to do something utterly awesome in Batman Begins Like taking out the Swat Team, the highway chase in Begins... Molossus plays?
- Also subverted; whenever the Joker is about to do something...no music plays. Joker's theme is an outstandingly creepy rising whine. Even when you know it's happening it's still marvellously disturbing. Also counts as Crowning Music Of Awesome
- Throw It In: Joker's clapping after Jim Gordon is promoted to Cmomissioner.
- Title Drop: The Dark Knight. The final words spoken are the movie's title, at the end of Commissioner Gordon's monologue.
- Too Kinky To Torture: The Joker.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Many people knew Gordon wasn't Killed Off For Real because of the Joker's trailer line of "Good eeeevening, Commissioner." Gordon hadn't yet been made commissioner at the time of his supposed 'death'.
- Trauma Conga Line: Poor Harvey Dent lost both the love of his life and half of his handsome face— not to mention his life's work— in one day. Is it any wonder that all it took for the evil bastard Joker to turn him into Two-Face is a little push?
- Trying To Catch Me Fighting Dirty: Aside from the Joker, it helps to remember that Batman almost always jumps enemies by surprise and the Scarecrow uses biological warfare in fist fights. And then there was that trick with the rappelling cable on the SWAT team in ''The Dark Knight'...
- The Unfettered: The Joker.
- Unflinching Walk: In Dark Knight, Lucius Fox.
- Subverted to all Hell and back by the Joker when he blows up the hospital. He starts this, and then the explosions stop. He stops walking and looks back, peeved that his explosives have failed. He fiddles with the detonator for a second. Nothing happens. He fiddles with it some more and there's a huge explosion, which startles him visibly. Then he keeps on walking... much faster than he was before.
- Also, after his truck is flipped, the Joker tries to calmly walk away, but trips and falls, accidentally firing a few rounds from his gun, before getting back up and steadying himself.
- Harvey Dent flinches only a little as the cops around him duck for cover under fire.
- Unhand Them Villain: The Joker does this to Rachel in The Dark Knight.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Rachel Dawes.
- Unwanted Rescue: Harvey. "NO! NOT ME! WHY ARE YOU COMING FOR ME?!"
- The Usual Suspects Ending: Well, not the ending, but attentive viewers will notice that the joker explains in detail two entirely conflicting sources of his "smile" to two different victims, and starts to tell a third to Batman before being cut off.
- Vigilante Execution: Joe Chill in Begins, subverted - the "vigilante" (really a hitman paid by Falcone) was stopping him from testifying against a mob boss, and the real enraged victim, Bruce Wayne, never got a chance to kill him.
- Villain Decay: Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, goes from a twisted but brilliant psychologist in Batman Begins to a glorified drug dealer in The Dark Knight.
- Well, hey, you need to Cut Lex Luthor A Check.
- It's also implied he's lost a fair amount of sanity due to exposure to his own toxins at the end of Begins—plus, he lost the support Ra's al Ghul was giving him, so he probably has to start over again at the bottom.
- And it's not like "Invented the poisonous gas that nearly destroyed the city" will look good on resume for legal jobs, either.
- Villainous Breakdown: The Joker has an understated version of this at the end of The Dark Knight, in contrast to his usual over-the-top theatrics; when the people of Gotham refuse to play his game and reveal themselves to have a core of decency, and it looks like his ultra-nihilistic view of the world might be wrong after all, he goes very, very still...
- Warrior Poet: Alfred, though his warrior days are (almost) past.
- Weaponized Car: The Batmobile and the Batpod.
- Well Intentioned Extremist: The Warriors of The League Of Shadows, who genuinely want to make the world a better place... by burning it to the ground and building a new one over the ashes of corruption.
- Harvey Dent is worried about this, with Gotham city very supportive of him challenging the mobs despite the backlash it might bring.
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- Western Terrorists: Ra's Al Ghul is...Liam Neeson. (Oddly, the name is Arabic for "The Demon's Head".) And Joker is referred to as a terrorist multiple times, though terrorists usually have some sort of motivation beyond terrorism.
- Wham Episode: "Why is he running, Dad?" "Because we have to chase him."
- No, the Wham came earlier, when Rachel dies.
- What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids: The Dark Knight is rated PG-13 for a reason. It is not a children's movie.
- What The Hell, Hero?: Pulled by the Joker, of all people.
- Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys: Bruce appropriates most of his equipment from Wayne R&D.
- Deconstructed in the second movie, when an accountant realizes millions of dollars of equipment have disappeared, including an experimental car that looks exactly like the Batmobile. He tries Blackmail...which, well, see Blackmail, above.
- Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him: Why doesn't the Joker just shoot Batman? Because he doesn't want to. Batman's just too much fun!
- The Windy City: The second film is very obviously set in Chicago, to the point where many Chicago-based viewers spent half the film trying to place where everything was shot. Based on the very obvious use of Chicago architecture, iconography, and Bruce Wayne's
Illinois licence plates license plates that say "Gotham" where it normally says "Illinois", one could assume that there is no Chicago in this branch of the DC Movieverse, but only Gotham City, Illinois State of Gotham.
- The first film involved a lot more soundstage work and CGI. In Real Life, New York is occasionally referred to as "Gotham," and Detroit is the seat of Wayne County, Mich., so Gotham City is often assumed to be a sort of hybrid of those two places.
- CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) buses were transformed into GTA (Gotham Transit Authority, not ''that'' GTA) buses through use of cunningly-placed decals. Of course, there's the small matter of the production designers opting for the "Old Look" CTA logo and not the "New Look" CTA Logo...
- Word Of God: At the end of The Dark Knight, it's left ambiguous whether Two-Face is dead or alive, but Chris Nolan has stated in interviews that in his mind, Harvey's dead.
- Keyword here: Harvey
- While there's speculation why not have that we never see Rachel's body, just the coin that Harvey gave to her.
- Not that much would have been left of her body
- The Woobie: Poor Bruce Wayne, and poor Harvey Dent.
- Xanatos Roulette: How does the Joker know where everyone is going to be in advance?
- He doesn't. This troper's favourite theory is that he has dozens of plans all the time, most which he'll never execute because the timing's wrong or it's not interesting enough. For example, he had probably rigged the hospital days or weeks earlier, with no clue at the time what he would use it for, biding for a suitable purpose.
- This Troper actually believes none of this is even a plan, and he literally just does things, like rigging the hospital, on a whim and then he uses them later with the illusion of a plan. He probably has the entire city rigged to blow in some way or another, without ever even having a general idea when.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Pulled in the opening sequence of Knight, as the Joker manipulates his goons into killing each other one by one due to their greed. In the end, he walks away with the whole haul, without having to share the $68 million with his five henchmen... and only needing to kill one of the five himself.
- Your Mileage May Vary: Christian Bale's Batman voice. Some find it thematically appropriate or even Bad Ass, while others find it to be Narm incarnate, ruining the experience.
- Your ______ Is Broken: "No, I kill the bus-driver."
|
|
