50 Facts You Didn't Know About The Dark Knight Trilogy

he turns to me and he says why so serious [Music] hey what's up everyone it's ryan here from the y and today we're going to be taking a look at the dark knight trilogy my personal favorite batman movies ever made and although much different than superhero movies of today they catapulted christopher nolan into a household name and broke our hearts with the tragic passing of heath ledger so without further ado here it is 50 facts you didn't know about the dark knight trilogy christopher nolan may be one of the most acclaimed directors of our day and age but that wasn't always the case back in 2002 after completing memento and insomnia he was seen as a good director but not quite to the level where studios would bend over backwards to his every demand so when nolan presented the concept of inception to warner bros it was deemed he needed more experience making large-scale films following this he began to work on a howard hughes biographical film starring jim carrey but was forced to set it aside after learning that martin scorsese was also doing a movie on hughes after nolan came up with the idea for a batman reboot and warner bros immediately greenlit the project thus in a way batman begins started out as a stepping stone for nolan to gain more practice making blockbuster films so he could eventually produce inception at first nobody knew they were doing a batman movie as the script was called the intimidation game sir michael kane initially thought he was doing some kind of gangster movie the soundtrack of batman begins composed by han zimmer and james newton howard was exceptional for a couple reasons every track in the film was named after a different kind of bat like vespertilio or macrotus the rest i'm not going to try and pronounce not only that but the first letter of tracks 4-9 spell out the word batman i'm batman batman begins was the first movie to feature a live action scarecrow to date cillian murphy got the part after initially auditioning for bruce wayne but marilyn manson christopher eccleston ewan mcgregor and jeremy davies were all considered also nolan was reportedly so fascinated with silly and murphy's blue eyes he kept trying to find ways to have him take off his glasses a drunk driver crashed into the batmobile on the streets of chicago apparently the crew was just moving the car down the street when a drunk driver without even a license came barreling down and sideswiped it his explanation for the whole thing he thought aliens were landing when he saw the car and floored it the language used by ken watanabe aka the fake razal ghoul was totally made up although it was japanese inspired the sword fight on the frozen lake was actually pretty dangerous the filming was all done in iceland and after arriving on location later than expected experts only gave them a day or two at max before all the ice melted so liam neeson and christian bale got the scene filmed in one day with the sounds of ice cracking beneath their feet the whole time and it's a good thing they finished it quickly because when they woke up the next day the lake had all melted remember this quote rub your chest your arms will take care of themselves well christopher nolan came out in an interview and explained he made it up and it has absolutely no scientific basis at all i totally remember seeing this and wondering if it were true i mean coming from liam neeson it sounds pretty convincing king joffrey or jack gleason made an appearance in batman begins as a kid i can't find my mom in terms of gaining or losing weight for a movie christian bale is the undisputed king and when he got the part in batman begins bale was at his lowest weight ever of 120 pounds because of his previous role in the machinist nolan simply told him to become as big as you can be in six months and bale certainly accomplished that as after the six months were up he weighed in at a hefty 220 pounds he actually gained too much weight as friends on the set dubbed him the fat man so bao lost 20 pounds to get a more lean frame in my opinion heath ledger's performance as the joker stands out as one of the all-time great movie villains this is due in large part to his level of commitment to the role and method acting in general in heath ledger's own words i sat around in a hotel room in london for about a month locked myself away formed a little diary and experimented with voices why so serious the diary was especially interesting as it contained newspaper clippings pictures from clockwork orange and many other odds and ends all of which were designed to help him get into character as the joker the dark knight is known for having probably the best viral marketing campaign in recent history this included harvey dent campaign rallies scavenger hunts and even an alternate reality game seeing the success of these viral marketing stunts a texas theater chain tried their hand at building buzz for the movie their method of accomplishing this involves sending chocolate cakes to nearby news stations with the message if you want to see coyote again be at the palladium theater at 8pm the icing formed a phone number and when called rang a phone inside the cake along with press badges to the premiere but things didn't go as planned as one of the local news stations had to be evacuated after believing the cake to be a bomb which the theater chain later apologized profusely for something you may not have noticed is that the batman theme was only played twice throughout the entirety of the dark knight a great choice by nolan as by only playing the heroic theme twice he didn't take away from the darkness that both the movie and the character of batman embody harvey it's okay it's all right listen one of the most memorable traits of heath ledger's joker was the constant licking of his lips ledger's performance as the joker was already near perfect but i think adding in this one little tick made his character and deranged personality so much more believable well according to the documentary i am heath ledger this wasn't by choice what actually happened was that the prosthetic scars on his face would constantly come undone whenever he talked so to prevent multiple trips back to the makeup chair ledger got the idea to lick his lips instead well you look nervous is it the scars heath ledger was always the first pick to play the joker but paul bettany lockheed holm adrian brody steve carell and robin williams all expressed interest in playing the character ledger first met nolan while auditioning for the role of bruce wayne and they both agreed he didn't really fit the part a big reason why nolan was so high on ledger was because of his performance in brokeback mountain describing the late actor as fearless and having a lack of vanity the joker's mask in the beginning sequence of the dark knight was a call back to caesar romero's 1960's joker in the episode the joker is wild you can see the similarities between the two masks in both design and color and even the reveal is almost identical during the chase scene after the joker takes over the semi truck you can see that the bullet holes on the windshield are in the shape of a smiley face when bruce asks for a new headpiece that's easier to look around in you want to be able to turn your head i sure might back it out of the driveway easier this is actually a reference to older batman movies because in vintage batman films the actor wore a helmet that was attached to the neck and shoulders making any turn of the head impossible the entire world after heath ledger's death i vividly remember the rumors that ran amuck about the movie being somehow connected to his overdose some people thought that the psychological stress of playing a character like the joker had taken a toll and caused ledger to accidentally take the wrong combination of drugs but this couldn't be farther from the truth as told by his family ledger deeply enjoyed playing the joker and instead suffered from insomnia which was a lifelong problem with him he would often take sleeping pills combined with other drugs to try and combat the issue but it seems on that night ledger took the wrong combination of drugs and possibly combined with a chest infection it was too much for his body the scars on the joker's face are actually based on a real wound called the glasgow or chelsea smile a practice originating from glasgow in the 1920s and 30s it involved cutting the corners of a victim's mouth up to their ears leaving a scar in the shape of a smile the most famous example of this in real life is actor tommy flanagan who was attacked outside of a nightclub by a gang you wanna know how i got these scars heath ledger gave an oscar-worthy performance as the joker but did you know he also directed parts of the movie the two scenes he ended up directing are the ransom videos sent to gcn which were actually recorded with the regular video camera christopher nolan was present for the first one but was so impressed with ledger's work that the second time around he didn't even feel the need to show up batman's voice in the dark knight was much more pronounced and rougher compared to batman begins it's not who i am underneath but what i do that defines me what's the difference between you and me i'm not wearing hockey pads this change led to the creation of many memes and jokes but it wasn't at all christian bale's doing instead his gritty voice was the result of christopher nolan retouching it in post-production the scene with the pencil magic trick caused a lot of complaints in the uk the dark knight was raided a 12a movie there which means no one under 12 was allowed and it definitely pushed the boundaries with that show of violence in fact in the year 2008 42 of the complaints to the british board of film classification were from angry parents who saw the dark knight i think a quote by sir michael kane perfectly summarizes heath ledger's outstanding portrayal of the joker jack nicholson was like a clown figure benign but wicked maybe a killer old uncle he could be funny and make you laugh heath's gone in a completely different direction than jack he's like a really scary psychopath he's a lovely guy and his joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture and sir michael kane would know best when he first met ledger on set after not having seen him as the joker it gave him such a fright he forgot all his lines the area where rachel dawes was killed and where two-face brings gordon's family 250 52nd street he's at 522nd street is a palindrome meaning that it reads the same backwards or forwards this is a reference to the opposite sides of dent's favorite coin as well as the two sides of his face you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain during bain's first encounter with batman the sound of their footsteps tells a lot about their character and differing fight styles as you can hear bane's thudding loud footsteps signifies his brute fighting style while batman's quiet walk reinforces the idea that he relies more on stealth and operating from the shadows oh you think darkness is your ally the walkie-talkies used by the police in the dark knight rises have an old dc comics logo on the bottom according to christopher nolan a major influence on the dark knight rises was the charles dickens novel a tale of two cities and since the book has a big focus on class warfare strife and revolution it makes a lot of sense they took inspiration from it because of this nolan put in a reference to a tale of two cities during the kangaroo court scene bane is shown sitting in the back of the court quietly knitting which was a practice in the book done by madame defarge while watching public executions standing at five nine tom hardy had to wear three-inch lifts to make bane seem taller he also accepted the role without even reading the script probably because christopher nolan was directing it [Music] when bruce wayne traces the fake fingerprints left behind by catwoman it pulls up a nikolai andrezko which is the same last name used by the joker in the fake obituary after the prologue trailer for the dark knight rises dropped in december of 2011 one issue became clear to many fans bane was very difficult to understand nolan reportedly commented on the situation saying that he planned to only alter the sound slightly and not change it completely but then the film came out and it definitely sounds like they did a total redubbing of that scene check it out for yourself [Music] it doesn't matter who we are what matters is our plan the scene in the football stadium features a packed crowd in winter wearing heavy coats but it was actually filmed during a huge heat wave across the east coast at the masquerade ball bruce wayne didn't wear a mask like everyone else because he considers batman to be his true identity and bruce wayne the disguise he shows to the public who are you pretending to be bruce wayne eccentric billionaire the nickname catwoman is never mentioned in the film instead whenever you see her in newspaper articles or anything of the sort it is simply the cat which holds true to how it was in the source material costume designer lindy heming says it took two whole years to make baines coat they went with a mix of a swedish army jacket and a french revolution coat to make bane look like both a dictator and a revolutionary as i terrorized gotham i will feed its people hope to poison their souls this line was a clear bit of foreshadowing that miranda tate was actually the daughter of raz al-ghul you have to invest if you want to restore balance to the world every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence we return to restore the balance the dark knight rises was actually the first time batman was featured in daylight in the entire batman movie franchise the joker was never mentioned in the dark knight rises out of respect for heath ledger nolan was also thinking of using deleted scenes and cgi to have the joker make an appearance but ultimately didn't follow through with it the riddler was almost the main antagonist for the dark knight rises anticipating a huge blockbuster success in the dark knight warner bros approached writer david s goyer at the premiere of the movie to talk about the third installment according to him they said obviously it's gonna be the riddler and we want it to be leonardo dicaprio but obviously it ended up not being the riddler as nolan wanted a villain with a more physical presence for the final movie a trait that suited bane much more than the riddler to make sure there weren't any leaks gary oldman said that nolan verbally told the ending to all the cast also the name on the tombstone was miranda tate which they later edited to bruce wayne in post-production they even went so far as to have christian bale on set during filming for the funeral so his name would show up on the call sheet in each of the three movies the main villain disguises himself as one of his own henchmen and there's also a conversation about each of them every movie in the trilogy has its own central theme for batman begins that theme is fear what do you fear the dark knight focuses on chaos i'm an agent of chaos and in the dark night rises it's pain a child born in hell forged from suffering hardened by pain can you imagine if the dark knight was never made well originally nolan never saw himself making a sequel to batman begins and it's not too far-fetched as he's never made a sequel to any of his other films the reason he finally decided to make one nolan got caught up imagining what the joker would be like through the prism of the first movie as i'm sure you remember bruce wayne's choice of car was always a lamborghini in batman begins it was the lamborghini murcielago roadster the dark knight saw him driving the murcielago lp-640 and in the dark knight rises he drove an aventador lp 700-4 one thing you may not have known is that murcielago means bat in spanish the story of batman has a historical basis in the life of teddy roosevelt both their fathers were members of the social elite and roosevelt's father actually founded the new york city children's aid society and the met bruce wayne's parents were of course tragically murdered after leaving the opera teddy roosevelt's father died from cancer after hiding its existence and mere hours before teddy arrived home from harvard then in 1884 the unthinkable happened his mother and wife died in the same house on the same day broken lost and confused much like bruce wayne teddy roosevelt retreated from society to the dakota territory where he became a cattle rancher and worked as a sheriff for two years after returning to new york city a changed man roosevelt resumed his career in politics and made his mark eventually becoming president a super inspirational story and one that has many parallels to the life of bruce wayne and why do we fall bruce so we can learn to pick ourselves up [Music] to put it bluntly jack nicholson was pissed about not being cast as the joker speaking on the matter he said i don't think they ever really captured tim burton's spirit they kind of drove the franchise into the ground tim burton's a genius he had the right take on it jim gordon is the last person batman speaks to in all three movies in the dark knight trilogy hero can be anyone even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders in preparation for filming christopher nolan screened a bunch of movies for the cast to give them an idea of what they were trying to accomplish for batman begins he showed them blade runner and before the dark knight they watched a ton of movies including heat cat people citizen kane king kong black sunday a clockwork orange and stall log 17. the mayor of a city called batman sued warner bros saying they didn't have permission to use that name because there's only one batman in the world and it's in turkey but the craziness didn't stop there the mayor then blamed the movie for a number of issues including a high murder rate and a rash of female suicides in the area of course nothing ever came of these accusations and the lawsuit but it's certainly one of the more bizarre claims i've ever heard let's just say christopher nolan has a pretty bad track record when it comes to imax cameras in fact during the course of the trilogy two imax cameras were all but destroyed the first accident occurred in the dark knight during the underpass scene it's a sequence filled with a ton of chaos and fast camera movements and in the fray an imax camera was lost the next mishap was caught on film and shows catwoman riding the bat pod down some steps and directly onto the imax camera and if there's one thing you don't want to break on a movie set it's the imax camera as they cost about half a million dollars each meaning that these two accidents alone set nolan back by a million dollars thank you all so much for watching i had a lot of fun making this one i really hope you enjoyed it if you did give me a like and subscribe for more content like this alright have a great day everyone see you next time

Channel: The Why

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Id: uFu5o1sFk1M

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 20 2021