Geekman's World: Mer

But what I'll grind and gnash my teeth for with anticipation over the next year and a half is the return of Christopher Nolan's film Batman now known to be titled "The Dark Knight". Not "Batman: The Dark Knight", just his alternate and most poignant moniker.

We also now know that it shall be Heath Ledger who will play the Joker. I might have been skeptical of this choice before seeing Brokeback Mountain, where his acting muscles were quite successfully flexed. It has been stated that the inspiration for the Joker will come primarily from Alan Moore's classic, The Killing Joke.

If there is a single acrh-enemy of Batman, it is the Joker. Batman is a serious figure of black and shadow, utterly devoted to law, order and protection of the innocent while completely opposed to wielding a gun or killing for any reason. The Joker is flippant and mad; while wearing bright colors and taking nothing seriously he kills because it somehow tickles his sick funny bone. His element is chaos.

They are diametric opposites.

It's been said that while Batman exists the Joker must exist also. The Batman of Killing Joke unwittingly creates the Joker, and the Joker of Tim Burton's movie unwittingly creates Batman. Batman Begins implies with no subtlety this state of co-existence. As long as there is the positive charge, there will be the negative. Their fates are linked.

I have a strong suspicion/hope that The Dark Knight will explore this relationship. And an even stronger hope that I'll finally get to see the Joker of my dreams (and nightmares) represented faithfully on screen.

No really. I meant that Batman is the beginning and the end. He is the alpha and the omega.

Completely agree with you on Batman. Speaking of interesting movie trailers, you've seen the one for "300" right?

I think so. I was kind of surprised to see that Frank Miller wrote a graphic novel about that story (the Battle of Thermopylae). He's an interesting guy.