One of the best movies of 2008 was The Dark Knight. I never thought I would say that a Batman movie was one of my favorites, because up until Batman Returns, they well . . . sucked. I'm sorry, I'm not a big comic book fan. Just because some of these iconic comic figures on the big screen were some of the first, doesn't make them the best.
So what makes The Dark Knight so compelling that it goes beyond comic book and science fiction geekdom? It's taking all the good things about movies and putting a twist to them.
The problem with batman and most comic book movies up until the new Spider Man movies and Batman movies(yes, still pretty much all the rest of the big screen comic movies still suck hard core and are only good marketing stints, oh except Iron Man, you were good too), is they fell into stale super hero formulas.
Then Spider-Man came along, and instead of there just being a super hero in tights kicking butt and getting the girl, they rewrote it and gave it a backstory. A realistic back story. Suddenly there were reasons that the audience could believe. We finally could believe that a boy could have spider-like powers because the story made it make sense. Suddenly, we were interested and engaged with the relationship building between the geek and the pretty girl.
Then, after Spider-Man is pretty much another lengthy time of crap comic movies. Afterwards comes batman returns which does the thing, makes the super hero believable. All the sudden we find out why Bruce Wayne chose to be batman because of his fear of bats, we understood his reasoning for wanting to get rid of criminals in Gotham, and we now knew that Wayne Enterprises was the vehicle for him to get this all done with all his bat-mo-gadgets.
Suddenly, the movie goer loved Batman again.
But no one guessed on how huge The Dark Knight would be. Batman Returns didn't do so great in the box office, but was popular among those who saw it, but with the Dark Knight people got excited, because of one man; The Joker.
The Joker is the defining element of The Dark Knight. Up until this movie I, along with most, thought the joker was lame, and again there was no rhyme or reason for why the Joker was who he was. But in The Dark Knight this changed.
In writing screenplays there is usual a central object or theme that is introduced into the movie, that the viewer may not be aware of, but is a sort of underlying metaphor for something bigger. For example, in the Dark Knight Harvey Dent carries his lucky two headed coin, that has more meaning then one. In the movie jumper it was a little snowglobe. The matrix, it was the binary code that flashed down the screen.
I share this because in the Dark Knight there was more than the physical object. There was a new fresh underlying theme that excited and scared audiences. It was choosing between the lesser of two evils. We finally find out that the Joker is crazy, that's the reason for why he acts how he does, and the reason that he has the stupid grin on his face is no longer makeup, but rather slits in his cheeks from an unmentioned incident in his past. For the joker, these scars(and the tagline "Why so serious?!", love it!) are his underlying object with bigger meaning.
What I'm getting at though, is the interesting element that The Dark Knight brings into the mix. They ask the question, "What would a good person do if they had to choose between the lesser of two evils?" We see it when the detective and Batman have to choose between Harvey Dent or Rachel Dawes, when the prisoners and the citizens on the cruiseline have to choose between dying or killing a boat full of people, and we see when Harvey Dent has to choose between playing hero the legal way or the illegal way. There are many more examples.
This simple theme propelled the movie and made it one of the most intense movies I've ever seen, and one of the best. The Batman franchise no longer has to do with a man dressed like a bat parading around with his costume comic-con buddies, and has everything to do with choosing between wrong and right. From now on the Batman franchise will have to continue to amaze and bring new elements to movie making to stay on top.
This has been written to help you see what makes a good screenplay, and by reading it I hope you will look at your own writing and see what is stale or bland. Ask yourself what fresh elements you can bring into your writing to increase interest, bring in a believable and detailed background without spending too much time explaining it, and using subtle underlying themes and objects to get the message across WITHOUT bringing attention to your self or the theme blatantly.
