Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Since Batman Begins filled the silver screen in the summer of 2005, the idea of a sequel was on everyone’s thoughts.

And Gordon revealing The Joker’s calling card in the last seconds of the picture made it even more exciting.

Now we’re in the early stages of the sequel The Dark Knight, and I want to know people’s thoughts on it.

From the casting decisions to the plot to the rumours etc…

My thoughts so far is why are people so quick to judge Chris Nolan’s casting of Heath Ledger in the role of the clown Prince of Crime?

People feel because we never seen Ledger in this type of role before he’s not suited to play the part. Well what about Michael Keaton? We never seen him play a role like Batman before he was cast… And he gave us an astounding portrayal.

I have every fate in Chris Nolan and if he sees something in Ledger I’m sure we will be praising him after it’s release.

What do others think? [cK]

Any time any actor is cast in any role, you're going to have someone second-guessing the choice, and when it's a role that's been around so long, and which so many people have their own ideas about, you can magnify that controversy by tenfold.

Trust me, this is nothing compared to the firestorm over Daniel Craig being cast as Bond, and in a few months everyone will wonder what the fuss was about on that one.  He'll do fine.

As for Keaton, he's a fine actor but I still maintain he was totally miscast as Bruce Wayne/Batman.  He did a lot better than I expected, all things considered.  But he's still wrong for Batman, and Burton was wrong to pick him.  Keaton himself resisted the idea at first, and should have trusted his instincts.  

I think if we can learn anything from that, though, it's that you can fret forever about some decision or other you think is going to ruin a film, when in the end what ruins it is something else entirely, probably something you never saw coming.  In this case, casting Keaton wasn't nearly so destructive as putting Burton in the director's chair, or letting Warren Skarren re-write Hamm's script.

This also holds true for everything else in life! I speak from experience!

I agree.  The problem I always had with Keaton is that I never could picture him as Bruce Wayne in training to be Batman.  With this in mind and after seeing Batman Begins I thought Christian Bale was perfect.  

As for Heath Ledger...
I think he's an interesting choice.  I'm anxious to see how it turns out.

Ledger's a bit beefy for the Joker, a guy I always pictured as rail-thin.  Adrien Brody would've made more sense.  Just slap on some whiteface and you don't even need prosthetics for the nose and chin.

In the end, it all comes down to the acting.  Nobody could look less like the Joker than the short, fat, balding and aging Jack Nicholson in 1989, but he stole the movie, didn't he?

Filmmakers always go the way they want to go, and as often as not it works.  The Green Goblin's costume in the first Spidey movie bore almost no resemblance to the comic book version (it was green, that's about it), but people love that movie.  

I say let's wait and see.

I prefer the Joker as thin, but not so thin as to be skeletal.  Brian Bolland's Joker from Killing Joke just seems a little too stick-figurey to me.

They keep talking about it being darker which kinda worries me. Begins veered Miller choosing instead to take it's cues from the 70's comics, but I'm worried the sequels will descend into Miller crap.

Amen to that Kuuga.  The scarey part is Miller seems to be "hot" in Hollywood right now, and as always, the majority of tinstletown is monkey see, monkey do.

After reading this post, I looked up Frank's Hollywood activitiy.  It seems all he's done is write the screenplays for Robocop 2 and Robocop 3 - both of which were not so hot - and give the "go ahead" to someone else to create the Sin City movie.  Aside from a cameo, he had no involvement at all with the film.

He is now slated to direct Will Eisner's The Spirit.

I'll just be pleased if the Joker isn't the annoying, boring mass-murderer-who-doesn't-do-anything-else he is in the recent/current comics... I'll hope for "Batman:TAS-Joker" or 70's-comics-Joker, but I'm not holding my breath...

But the '70's Joker isn't NEARLY as "kewl" and hip as the boring mass-murderer who isn't funny, though some goth kids THINK he is! 

;)