That wouldn't have been too tricky to pull off with a double and a little CG, would it?
The Joker's presence dominated The Dark Knight, and thus, the overall trilogy's story-line. To completely ignore him in the conclusion was jarring, and even more-so because of how big of a role everyone else had. I understand the hesitancy to recast him after an great performance and untimely death, but to not even mention or reference his character at all felt a tad silly to me when they were referencing almost everyone and everything else in the franchise. I don't get how it's supposed to be an insult to acknowledge his impact on the franchise with some flashbacks or anything. Maybe someday though, someone will 'George Lucas' him and this scene into a special edition of the movie (along with Maggie Gyllenhaal into Batman Begins?) or remove the copious references to Ra's Al Ghul and Harvey Dent. I'd enjoy that.
Nice idea.
ReplyDeleteBut... who would give him food and water for those ~5 months?
Probably no one. :(
DeleteHarley Quinn
DeleteYES
Deletei have a couple of reasons for you.
ReplyDelete1) it's been 8 years from dark knight to dark knight rises
2) bane releases the prisoners from blackgate prison, not arkham asylum, while nolan doesn't necessarily follow every single detail of the comics, joker was always ALWAYS locked up in arkham, because he's... you know... nuts.
1) He'd still be alive.
Delete2) So was Scarecrow.
We did think of essentially this scene but it was dismissed early on.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe that you are the real Christopher Nolan for a plethora of reasons.
DeleteI assume you mean a lot of reasons?
DeleteIndeed.
DeleteI disagree. This would be a mistake in two ways:
ReplyDelete1: It's insulting when a director tries to justify the absence of a main character with a stand in or an off handed remark. It's as if the director is saying to himself "there we are, now everyone will think I removed the character on purpose." The first example that comes to mind is Agent Coulson briefly remarking to Thor that Natalie Portman's character has been relocated for her safety, he might as well have just said "that's why you probably won't see her in this movie."
2: Since everyone knows that Heath Ledger is dead, as soon as we saw him represented by a stand in, CGI, or a combination of the two, we would be pulled out of the otherwise wholly immersive experience that was TDKR. People would stop thinking, "Bane, prisoners, riot," and start thinking "someone that the director thought looked enough like Heath Ledger that he could pass for him in a shadowy room, so long as we only see the shots of him that the director is allowing." The illusion is shattered and we start looking at the movie in parts again, instead of as an experience.
That is at least my take on it. I'm glad that Nolan respected the audience enough to not try to trick them, or feel like he needed to justify anything to them.
I was fine with that line in Avengers. It's a long movie with a lot to go through, I didn't need them to spend 10 minutes on her. It did seem excusatory, but it would've been weirder if they didn't say anything at all.
DeleteMost of the people watching the movie are in other countries, and probably mostly don't know that he died. I agree that I'd be taken out of the film for a moment, but only as much as I was when I saw the new, completely different looking Rachel for the first time in The Dark Knight. It would've been worth it.
Do you really believe that the rest of the world doesn't know that Ledger died? I'm sorry, but this is a just serious misconception about the speed of information these days — maybe some people in African countries don't know, but they probably won't be seeing “The Dark Knight Rises” anyway.
DeleteYou think People in other countries dont know Lecher died on the Internet era? Americans like you are trully idiots thinking this way. Athens - Greece
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ReplyDeleteThere IS a mention of the Joker in the novelization (book) based on Nolan's screenplay for DKR; in the book, it's suggested that many of the guys Bane frees in the scene your cartoon references were originally kept at Arkham Asylum. During the 8 years between the end of "Dark Knight" and DRK, however, Arkham ended up being closed down due to budget issues, so most of the inmates were transferred to regular jail cells--with the ONLY inmate still being kept at Arkham being the Joker himself. I think doing something like that, making some on-screen reference to it in the film (maybe even a background shot of Arkham, with a pre-recorded copy of Ledger's Joker laugh in the vocal background... as if the Clown Prince was cackling away like the maniac he was in his solitary confinement) would have been the best solution-slash-tribute.
ReplyDeleteAs for the earlier comment that it's insulting: such things happen in REAL LIFE on a a daily basis--an explanation to friends as to the absence of a lover or spouse at a social function, or an explanation to co-workers why someone is absent from a particular meeting. How is that any less insulting than Colson's line in the Avengers? What would have been MORE insulting--to me, anyway, was to have Ms. Portman appear in some glorified cameo of a minute or two of screen time, just to justify her character's connection to Thor. Besides, they paid off her absence in the Avengers with the banter between her and Hemsworth in Thor: TDW.