If you saw I Am Legend you’ve probably seen this already and if you saw it on IMAX you saw an entire sequence from the film, but if you didn’t make it to the theater this weekend it’s finally out.
The first full length trailer for The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins AKA Conor’s favorite superhero movie.
I have been looking forward to this movie with a lot of cautious enthusiasm. I absolutely adored Christopher Nolan and David Goyer’s reclamation of the cinematic Batuniverse, Batman Begins, seeing it multiple times in the theater and then over and over on DVD and on television. But as anyone around in the 1990s and aware of such things, these kind of movies can go horrible off the rails and rather quickly at that.
As a result of those bad Schumemories, I haven’t allowed myself to get super excited for The Dark Knight until I had more concrete reasons to be. Especially because The Joker is involved in this one and as much as I really like Jack Nicholson’s buffoon mobster take on The Joker, I still yearned for someone to bring the terrifyingly psychotic madman to the screen.
The makeup tests and still pictures that started leaking out were a good start, I had hope that this would be a different, truly scary Joker that we’d finally see on-screen. The guerrilla marketing campaign really worked for me. I liked that they were taking a different approach to keeping this movie in the mind’s eyes of the fans. Also, I got a dollar from one of the guerrilla marketers in San Diego handing out Joker-defaced money.
And now the full length trailer has finally come out and I have to admit… I have goosebumps. It’s possible that I have goosebumps because it’s 35 degrees outside and my landlord isn’t very free and easy with the heat, but I am pretty sure it’s from having just watched the trailer. I absolutely love the world that they have created for these movies. It is totally believable and more-so than in any other superhero movie I can think of, Gotham City really feels tangible, almost like a character. It’s possible that it is because “Gotham City” itself is so much more of a character than any other city in super hero comics that I just look for it to naturally translate to the screen, but I think a lot of the credit has to go to the production team for creating a real environment which is as much of a gothic setting as anything that Anton Furst came up with for Tin Burton’s Batman, but while remaining a real city.
It’s not just the setting, though, that has me excited. I squealed (internally, I swear) when I saw Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon in the trailer. He might have been the best comics-to-screen realization in Batman Begins, a movie full of terrific casting. I was almost as happy as I was about them nailing Gordon’s character as I was about anything else. Talk about a guy who has gotten the short shrift in the live action adaptations throughout the years.
And now finally we get our first real look at The Joker. I think I’m completely relieved. It’s not that I didn’t really like the still pictures that I had seen — I loved them — but you can never fully know how anything is going to look until it’s in full motion and in context of its physical reality. He looks terrifying. I have always maintained that when The Joker is done right, just the very sight of him should cause people to loosen their bladders. Not just because you know what he will do, but because he looks like he would do it.
The only thing I’m not fully on-board with yet is the strange, warehouse-ish, super bright Batcave. That’s just weird.
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mary mother of god this looks amazing… I will be taking many nights off from my summer job as a camp counselor to see this movie, you can hold me to that
This movie looks great! Thanks for the heads-up on the trailer.
I saw the joker scene last night and thought it was great, I had read one of the synopsis’s of it online and just the read was great but seeing is always just that much better.
I knew he was going to say
spoiler
” anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stranger”
end spoiler
and had imagined ledger delivering it in a maniacal voice, so i was shocked when i heard it in a calm almost conversational tone, as if consoling the man he was about to kill with a grenade.
Now seeing the trailer I know that I have no idea how this is going to work, I know i will not see the full character of the joker or be able to make any assumptions on how this is going to go down. I am just going to have to go on faith ( and spoiler block out) until I can see this all in context.
When this movie comes out, there should be an iFanboy video podcast covering the best Batman trades.
Here is the imax preview: http://joblo.com/index.php?id=19028&s=&mode=showcomments&from=10
This looks so amazing. Batman Begins is my second favorite super hero movie behind Spider-Man 2
“When this movie comes out, there should be an iFanboy video podcast covering the best Batman trades.”
Or maybe a discussion break about some of the key characters (and stories), before returning to the regular Amazon Affiliate programming? :-p
Loving the slick quality and blue hue of it all. The apartment looks great, too! Although, somewhere in the back of my mind I’m waiting for Wayne to start doing one-arm pushups with Chainsaw Massacre in the background.
Surprised you [Conor] think this series communicates Gotham City as a character.
As removed at is was from a realistic major city, I think Burton’s went to lengths more akin to the comics and/or cartoon to communicate the decay and unique qualities of the city.
That, and it’s function was probably a bit more suited to Batman’s movements than lots of sweeping pans around the nosebleed decorative tops of skyscrapers.
Looks good, though.
Even if I can’t help but pause for a moment every time I see that overhead shot of Ledger’s massive melon.
Oh. My. God! Just had a geekgasm! I’ve been on edge all weekend waiting for this. Absolutely perfect! (spoilers ahead, by the way)
In the post for the awesome Iron Man trailer I think I said something like “Come on Chris Nolan, the gauntlet for next summer has been well and truly thrown… Come out fighting!”. Well, blimey, Nolan must’ve been in training ’cause he just KO’d Iron Man with that trailer! I love the Iron Man trailer, and I’m excited to see both films, but Batman’s more my guy so, as Conor put it, I have goosebumps.
I was a big fan of the Heath-Joker stills, loving the direction they were taking, but after seeing him in action he was almost unrecognisable. The look, the voice, the posture was, well, just sinister! Is it just me, or does he not look anything like Heath Ledger in this? He seems to be truly inhabiting the role, and truly terrifying.
Gordon looks perfect, Rachel Dawes has a fantastic actress playing her this time… everything looks like Batman Begins being stepped up a notch without losing the soul that made it great. Bale got a little shortchanged in the trailer, but it’s understandable they want to market Joker in the trailers, plus Nolan’s said that Batman has the most screen time in TDK.
Conor, don’t worry, the warehouse-ish, super-bright batcave is probably a lair under Wayne Towers (I’m guessing, but it would make sense), as they went ot the trouble of setting up the cave under Wayne Manor in Begins… Having said that, it did burn down and Bruce said it needed re-modelling in the east wing… I know nothing, ignore me!
Favourite trailer moment: Either
“Evening… COMMISSIONER!”
or
“You’ve got a little spirit, I like that”
“Then you’ll love ME!”
Surprised you [Conor] think this series communicates Gotham City as a character.
As removed at is was from a realistic major city, I think Burton’s went to lengths more akin to the comics and/or cartoon to communicate the decay and unique qualities of the city.
This Gotham looks like a real city. Anton Furst’s design, while really cool, didn’t ever make me feel like I was in a real environment. There’s more realism here.
In Nolan I trust! 🙂
“This Gotham looks like a real city. Anton Furst’s design, while really cool, didn’t ever make me feel like I was in a real environment. There’s more realism here.”
But you don’t agree that’s at the cost of character? There’s very little unique about this Gotham, with the exception of maybe the HK style Narrows.
I think it’s crass to give Gotham credit as a character (even in comics) as it becomes more common. I think that decay, retro tone, and cramped layout is key to representing not only Gotham as an urban organism — but also as a canvas for the commonalities of Gotham’s personalities.
But you don’t agree that’s at the cost of character? There’s very little unique about this Gotham, with the exception of maybe the HK style Narrows.
No, I don’t agree. It’s more real to me this way, thus it has more of a personality and is thus more of a factor in the story.
The Anton Furst Gotham City – again, while very cool – looked like what it was – a big set.
“No, I don’t agree. It’s more real to me this way, thus it has more of a personality and is thus more of a factor in the story.”
Is that personality obvious and uninvolving?
I’m not saying I want a living cartoon again, because that’s clearly against the conceit of Nolan’s hyper-realism, but to credit this city as a “character”… I could traverse the globe and run across Gotham, and I suppose that’s a specific irony, given the pastiche of filming locations/sets.
I’m definitely not discounting the cities quality or realism, but it’s character? I scoff! Verily!
I suppose we’ll just have to live with disagreeing. 🙂
I loved the designs of the Burton films, saw the first one when I was 10. But in later years I’ve watched a load of DVD docs, where they state “and we built the whole city on the lot”. They say it like it’s a good thing. And don’t get me wrong, the production and set design is always great, but you always feel like you’re watching a film shot on a lot.
If anyone disagrees, feel free to ignore/chastise me, this is just my opinion.
I love that Nolan’s Batman series has scope. When you see him on a building looking over a city, you know he’s on that building looking over that friggin’ city.
I saw I AM LEGEND in IMAX (movie fell apart but the trailer was worth $12).
OH.
MY.
GOD.
I need a new pair of pants.
Conor, as mentioned above, the bat-lair you are seeing here is indeed a makeshift “batcave” Bruce has set up in the interim as the new manor is being built. It may be Wayne towers, but I’m not sure. It harkens back to the O’Neil run in the seventies, when Batman operated largely out of a penthouse. The international poster shows Bats in full costume gazing out of the penthouse overlooking the city. You can take this info to the bank.
Chicago looks AMAZING in this film.
Fangasm……..
Yeah, saw the trailer this weekend myself and had the same thought about the Batcave…it had me thinking that it wasn’t the batcave at first but actually that warehouse room in Wayne Industries where Morgan Freeman hung out in the first movie…
If you do a tie-in show, I say avoid the best of Batman trades thing because they’ve been covered plenty. But Highlighting the secondary characters would be cool: Gordon, Alfred, Harvey Dent, the Joker and perhaps others who never made it to the live action screen.
And any video show Batman special should be taped in the dark with flashlights under your faces.
I think a Joker show would be great. Focus on the best stories and maybe do a Heath vrs. Jack as a the Joker bit. Maybe even call up Jerry Robinson and get his thoughts on all this. He is a very approachable person. Met him at SDCC ’06.
The lit Batcave garage makes sense, he’s not going to be doing complicated car modification in the dark 😉