The Dark Knight Movie Reviews, Pictures

Before the release of Batman Begins, screenwriter David S. Goyer wrote a treatment for two sequels which introduced the Joker and Harvey Dent. His original intent was for the Joker to scar Dent during the Joker’s trial in the third film, turning Dent into Two-Face. Goyer, who penned the first draft of the film, cited the DC Comics 13-issue comic book limited series Batman: The Long Halloween as the major influence on his storyline. While initially uncertain of whether or not he would return to direct the sequel, Nolan did want to reinterpret the Joker on screen. On July 31, 2006, Warner Bros. officially announced initiation of production for the sequel to Batman Begins titled The Dark Knight; it is the first live-action Batman film without the word “Batman” in its title, which Bale noted as signaling that “this take on Batman of mine and Chris’ is very different from any of the others.”

After much research, Nolan’s brother and co-writer, Jonathan, suggested the Joker’s first two appearances, published in the first issue of Batman (1940), as the crucial influences. Jerry Robinson, one of the Joker’s co-creators, was consulted on the character’s portrayal. Nolan decided to avoid divulging an in-depth origin story for the Joker, and instead portray his rise to power so as to not diminish the threat he poses, explaining to MTV News, “the Joker we meet in The Dark Knight is fully formed…To me, the Joker is an absolute. There are no shades of gray to him — maybe shades of purple. He’s unbelievably dark. He bursts in just as he did in the comics.” Nolan reiterated to IGN, “We never wanted to do an origin story for the Joker in this film”, because “the arc of the story is much more Harvey Dent’s; the Joker is presented as an absolute. It’s a very thrilling element in the film, and a very important element, but we wanted to deal with the rise of the Joker, not the origin of the Joker.” Nolan suggested Batman: The Killing Joke influenced a section of the Joker’s dialogue in the film, in which he says that anyone can become like him given the right circumstances.

Nolan also cited Heat as “sort of an inspiration” for his aim “to tell a very large, city story or the story of a city”: “If you want to take on Gotham, you want to give Gotham a kind of weight and breadth and depth in there. So you wind up dealing with the political figures, the media figures. That’s part of the whole fabric of how a city is bound together.”

As we looked through the comics, there was this fascinating idea that Batman’s presence in Gotham actually attracts criminals to Gotham, [it] attracts lunacy. When you’re dealing with questionable notions like people taking the law into their own hands, you have to really ask, where does that lead? That’s what makes the character so dark, because he expresses a vengeful desire.
—Nolan on the theme of escalation

According to Nolan, an important theme of the sequel is “escalation”, extending the ending of Batman Begins, noting “things having to get worse before they get better”. While indicating The Dark Knight would continue the themes of Batman Begins, including justice vs. revenge and Bruce Wayne’s issues with his father, Nolan emphasized the sequel would also portray Wayne more as a detective, an aspect of his character not fully developed in Batman Begins. Nolan described the friendly rivalry between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent as the “backbone” of the film. He also chose to compress the overall storyline, allowing Dent to become Two-Face in The Dark Knight, thus giving the film an emotional arc the unsympathetic Joker could not offer.