The Dark Knight Sucks » Visuals/Effects

"I'll Have What He's Having."

tdksucks — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:03:46 +0000

In the world of super-realistic Batman, if you get half your face melted off, you are endowed with the following amazing super powers:

A magic eyeball that is impervious to harm, even if every piece of flesh around it is burned beyond recognition. You will no longer need to fear death because your eyeball will live on.
Immunity to infection that would kill any normal human being.
Be able to speak with your normal voice even though half your mouth and lips are scorched off.
The power of instant teleportation and being able to get to any part of a city in the blink of an impervious eye.
The ability to kill someone in a car crash while riding in the same car and, even though you enter the car with half an exposed face, and the other person just has (almost) broken legs, you will be the one who survives UNHARMED.
Be endowed with the ability to be the only one of a few people on Earth who not only shoots AT batman with an actual gun (versus using fists, sticks, pipes, and dogs), but actually hitting him with a bullet.
Be able to find anyone you’re looking for, anywhere, at any time, when you need to find them.

Special Effects for Two-Face

tdksucks — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:01:54 +0000

OK, this was visually well-crafted. Executed perfectly. Visually well-blended. Impressive.

So how come he ended up looking like half an alien from “Mars Attacks”?

It was “too perfect”. I used to do 3D rendering and animation. I pay attention. The problem with a lot of 3D animation (many times referred to as CGI, or Computer Graphics Imaging) when it’s intended to appear realistic is that the element of real-world “weathering” is forgotten, poorly executed, or unable to be mastered. I can understand this difficulty when an entire movie is dependent on CGI but, as far as can be discerned, the only significant CGI in “The Dark Knight” was the burned side of Harvey’s face.

If you can stomach it, go to Google Images and do a search for “burn victims” (you may have to turn SafeSearch off). That’s some scary shit, and had they managed something that realistic looking on the Two-Face CGI then maybe his quick dissent into psychotic dementia would have been a little more believable.

About Suspension of Disbelief

tdksucks — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:25:51 +0000

There’s a notion when watching/reading fictional movies/stories, and it’s called “suspension of disbelief”. Most contemporary movies, even if they are based within reality, require the audience to maintain at least SOME suspension of disbelief. Suspension of disbelief is [from Wikipedia] “the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible”.

Yes, “The Dark Knight” is a piece of fiction. It is a piece of fantasy, based on a comic book. However, the clear premise of the rebooted Batman series, and the clear goals of Chris Nolan, the director, is to ground the fiction in reality. Nolan goes to great effort to place the world of Batman into the real world, including: the locations, the characters, the story dynamics, and the plausibility of the elements of the story and plot. That is the obvious goal. Especially in “The Dark Knight”, extending from the basis of “Batman Begins”, there is a persistent focus on keeping things realistic and not idealistic. TDK is an attempt at taking something sourced from fantasy and placing it into reality, and also removing any semblance of idealism.

That’s all find and good – it’s an interesting goal and “Batman Begins” pulled it off quite well. Watching BB, the audience can truly believe the various aspects of the story. The main problem with TDK is that it fails miserably in that regard. There are numerous scenes and situations that are completely not plausible at all, and the audience is expected to have a greater suspension of disbelief than what is implied throughout. It steals from the audience the very thing that is meant to prop the value of the movie up in the first place. The movie contradicts itself, it cheats itself, and the audience. To compensate, what the audience is given is a lot of explosions and sadistic scenes, and the masses appear to have bought into it.