Don't agree about IM, sure it was grounded in our world like most Marvel is but that's about it.

Agree that the Schumacker films were bad but my point was that bringing up the worst film of any specific genre isn't being fair. That's like if someone wants a true sci/fi film and I use Battlefield Earth to condemn all sci/fi as if there weren't any good sci/fi films

Despite all that I agree with Karas and you about some of the points you guys made about the Bat films. The funny thing is that as time moves on I find the Schmacker films better. Not that they're good but that they're so bad and campy that I'm developing a certain fondness for them. Of course the 1st one by Burton still remains the best Bat film ever IMO

 Just saying, I remember some people on here wondering how Thor was going to fit into the "realistic world" that Jon Favreau started with Iron Man.

Iron Man is a more scifi concept  than many other Marvel Universe characers.  But  that doesn't preclude more fantastic elements being brought into the franchise.

  "And Ledger would never have been nominated for an Oscar if he hadn't died.  Not because his performance didn't deserve it but because they don't give out Oscars for comic book films."

That would be true if Al Pacino hadn't been nominated for his performance as Big Boy Caprice in the comic book movie Dick Tracy.

Also, while not an Oscar, Jack Nicholson scored a Golden Globe for his performance as The Joker in Batman.  It was only a matter of time till someone played The Joker and scored an Oscar nod.  That someone turned out to be Ledger.

I don't like to partake in these old arguments anymore but since I'm here what the hell. First, I'm not entirely sure on this and I don't want to look it up but I believe Heath Ledger doesn't have a $100 million (domestically) under his name outside of The Patriot which doesn't count cause it's really Mel Gibson movie.  The man mostly did small or independent movies.  Let's not act like he was a huge star with a gigantic fan base who rushed out to TDK to witness his last complete performance.

Like previously mentioned, Batman Begins generated a lot of goodwill towards the Bat franchise, had that movie sucked TDK's numbers aren't great.  Shac already mentioned the doubling of the Begins dvd sales.

As Hobbs, mentioned the Joker is where it's at.  The top two grossing Batman films ever have The Joker in common.

Ledger gave an Oscar worthy performance and the movie was excellent.  Well, excellent in my opinion, what I wanted to say was that people really liked it.  I know this because in the summer of 2008 it held on to the number 1 spot for four consecutive weeks.  That means word of mouth was pretty darn good.

The movie also had a really good online campaign, and marketing to go with it.  All these things played into The Dark Knight's box office numbers.

Did Ledger's death get the movie some publicity?  Sure but not what people make it out to be and certainly not $500 million worth of publicity.

 Hey, if you watch Batman & Robin as a comedy it kind of works.  Mr. Freeze has a lot of great one liners.

What killed the dinosaurs?  The Ice Age!  " Cool party" or "Ice to see you"  hahahaha, oh that Mr. Freeze is a riot.

Hey Hanso, I tried to look at Batman and Robin like that, and I STILL can't get pass 5 mins at any point. I can't even look at it like the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman. I would say that I'm one of those people that want someone to bring something different to the tablewhile keeping with what makes that charater, that charater. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Captain America... as much as the basic of the charater stayed the same, so many things have changed over the decades, plus so many writes have done spins on the charater. There is so much room for a Gritty Crime drama Batman and a comic book wild and fantastic world of Batman. Yes, I was one of those that was fine with Superman having the son and not know it, for whatever reason, though I do agree that it's time to just do Superman fighting other foes besides Lex and Zod.

Hobbs makes an excellent point that I never gave much thought to. The Joker is a major attraction and he was the talk after both films he appeared in.

And hanso summed it up pretty well, TDK had quite a few things working for it. Let's just call it the perfect storm. I expect TDKR to do major business regardless

First, I'm not entirely sure on this and I don't want to look it up but I believe Heath Ledger doesn't have a $100 million (domestically) under his name outside of The Patriot which doesn't count cause it's really Mel Gibson movie. The man mostly did small or independent movies.

Monster's Ball got a ton of rewards .. didn't quite make the 100 mill mark, but Brokeback came darn close (83 mil, I think).  He had some start power behind his name.  Let's not forget Knight's Tale!!!! 

Ok. Enough talking about TDK and Heath Ledger,

This is a Harry Potter comment board.

Thoughts on the movie? I loved it. Glad to see it remain faithful to the story. Some minor alterations but nothing major to really irritate me (being a fan of the books).

My only beef was the death of several characters "off screen". The same happened in the book and I was totally let down. I was hoping the movies would show a more cinematic death with the blessing of Rowling but no.

One thing for sure, there were some references to the books and if you didn't read any of them, it might have confused you. ex: Harry mentions Lupin's son at the end and not once did we hear of this in any of the movies. Was it in a deleted scene? If so, then why did they bother to keep this line in the movie? Kind of reminds me of Fellowship of the Ring. The Fellowship througout the rest of the series have these nice magic items and you kind of wonder where they got them. Book fans know it was Galadriel (and was revealed in the director's cut)

Regarding the son, it's pretty obvious Tonks was pregnant at the beginning of movie 7, so all the clues are there. I thought that part was neat, but still agree there was a bit too much compression and off-screen action for the last movie to have full effect. They never even explained that Harry had all three Deathly Hallows (not that the importance of that was really obvious in the book either).