Lets just say I have indigestion usually when a hero goes all rebel and shit when he loses everything*. What’s so noble about that?

As gay (very happy) as the Errol Flynn ROBIN HOOD was, that hero loses everything after he decided to stick it to those Norman fuckers. John Irvin’s ROBIN HOOD was OK, but I did like that one had the hero start that whole story because as a conquered Saxon, he’s sticking it to the foreign continental trash ruling his country.

God knows what the Ridley Scott version will do.

*=And in rhetorical pre-emptive strike, STAR WARS don’t count. Skywalker already was tempted to join, he just didn’t want to leave his poor uncle and poor aunt alone. You know, Stormtroopers with their occupation policies cause more hurt than help in the long run regarding possible insurgents and innocent civilians.

Which, incidentally, also could happen anyway with option ‘c’. The Joker is still alive and won’t be fooled by the popular notion of Batman being blamed for murdering various hoods plus Dent.

*everything* in the film builds up to the final decision Batman makes, and the following speech Gordon gives. The film is *about* that decision and the events that lead up to it. The ending is the reason why the name of the movie, “The Dark Knight”, can only come up after the movie, not before it. Because nobody in the audience is going to understand what the name of the movie truly means, until the very last minute.

The whole purpose and essence of The Dark Knight is to show what it truly means to be a hero. Joker blackmails and puts Batman into a situation where he has only two options:

a) Keep his anonymity and stay as a Batman. But if he makes this choice, the people he is supposed to protect are going to die.

b) Reveal Bruce Wayne is Batman, which means he can’t be Batman anymore. Joker won’t kill anyone, but in the future Batman can no more protect the people he is supposed to protect.

Even capturing Joker would be only winning half a battle, because in the future *anyone* could again force Batman face the same choice Joker gave him.

So Batman only has two choices in his life, and he can’t pick either one. EXCEPT that the existence of Harvey Dent might allow him to pick option B after all. Batman couldn’t protect people anymore, but Dent could take his place. Unfortunately, the story shows how even the bright hope for Batman, Harvey Dent, can be corrupted and destroyed.

And so Batman is again left with two choices, and he can’t pick either one. But then, at the very end of the film, he realizes there is a 3rd choice:

c) In the minds of people he protects, he must not be a hero, but a villain. He must be hated, feared and despised. Only that way nobody can blackmail him ever again, because he will be someone who at face value doesn’t care about the people. And now nobody can ever again compromise his position as the protector of Gotham City.

…It’s a brilliant ending, and an unpredictable yet perfectly logical solution to the moral dilemma the film presents. It’s not just a deconstruction of superhero stories, it’s a deconstruction of *heroism*. And it’s a sad, tragic, majestic ending.

Now, I know some people just don’t care whether a film has a theme. I get that, often I don’t care myself. But the theme in The Dark Knight worked for me because it was not only intellectually satisfying, but also *emotionally* powerful. The film went the extra mile, and for the last two minutes of the film I was completely blown away, followed by the appeareance of the film’s title, which made shivers running through my spine.

Great, great stuff.

Kinda an Emmerich/Bay/Snyder production of the time in that it was highly liked (or tolerated your definition) but now who quite cares if any about it? Forgotten like a bag of stale cookies.