>parents
I worked somewhere where everybody got the chance to accept a 20% pay decrease. Those who didnt accept were laid off and ended up having to apply for McDonalds and warehousing jobs even though they had masters degrees and decades of professional experience. Millenials and zoomers are about to experience hell for the next 10 or so years themselves as rising cost of living continues to outpace their wages
Nah. 9/11 decisively killed the fun phase we had been riding since the 1940s overnight. 2002-2006 was a strange period where people were coming down from the high not quite comprehending how rapidly the world had changed. In 2007 there was another huge overnight drop with a myriad of causes that culminated in the collapse of the economy in 2008 (which we never recovered from). There was a brief interlude in 2012 for some odd reason that I can't pin down, but that year was just fun and hopeful for some odd reason, it felt like we had miraculously warped back to 2001 but for just one year. From 2013 onward everything got progressively worse.
Everyone who was alive ane cognizant then recognizes 2001 was the year the fun ended and 2007 was the year we went off the cliff. If you think any of the years after 2001 were good (excepting 2012) that just means you either weren't alive yet or you were a kid and childhood years are always good years for the person themselves.
>9/11 decisively killed the fun phase we had been riding since the 1940s overnight
We survived. JFK's assassination was the 9/11 of the 60s (another extremely manic decade) and many people are nostalgic for that decade. I would say iPhones and social media were really the death knell for human society. So the Mayans were right.
>iPhones and social media were really the death knell for human society. So the Mayans were right.
This definitely opened the floodgates. It took about a decade for the third world to fully ingratiate themselves online with everyone else. At that point, all of the major sites shitposters used became monetized. Even the innocuous subreddits highlighting clown world between 2016 and 2019 slowly got culled from existence.
Wouldn't call it "fun" because it was the time of a major economic downturn, but I get what you mean. People were wrecked, and people were angry, but it was mostly at the political and banking establishments. This everpresent bitterness that we currently hold even towards each other, with people cutting their families off and such, wasn't there yet. A time in which the hot button wedge issue is public health care looks like a fricking utopia by now.
It was incredibly popular... I remember thinking joker's sloppy makeup was off-putting when first seeing the previews, but totally changed my mind after seeing the movie. When Ledger died, I knew someone who publicly declared on facebook that his death was a hoax and refused to accept he was gone. She would fight anyone who tried to tell her otherwise.
>What was it like when the dark knight came out in 2008?
It was crazy. There was smoke, and gunshots, then lots of police. Haven't been to a midnight premier with that kind of energy since then.
You guys are so fricking stupid. The shooting happened during the 3rd movie, not the 2nd. If you're going to make an edgy joke at least know what you're fricking talking about.
My co-workers were worried Dark Knight Rises was going to suck. I ended up taking my little brother to see it and we liked it. Next day at work we see that A-Hole on the news who shot up the theater.
You know what's worse? The guy only picked TDKR because he knew it was going to be packed. The media ran with the story that Joker inspired him based on his dye (?) and the assumptions of a policeman at the scene.
I saw it opening night, and I could tell that everyone knew it was going to be a classic as they were watching it. You could hear a pin drop during the scene where the Joker shows up to the mob meeting.
This was before mega-budget Hollywood entertainment started going edgy and feigning a sort of realism, so the tone of the movie was totally unexpected to normies.
Anyone else remember the massive backlash the movie got when it was announced Heath Ledger is going to be Joker? Man, it was savage with the "we don't want a homosexual Joker!" on account that Ledger was coming off Brokeback Mountain.
>This was before mega-budget Hollywood entertainment started going edgy and feigning a sort of realism, so the tone of the movie was totally unexpected to normies.
This exactly. I remember trying to persuade my brother in law to drive me to the cinema (I didn't have my license yet as I was 16) and see the film with me, and he was like "man, I don't wanna see a goofy Batman movie" - the last Batman movie he saw was Batman & Robin (he wasn't familiar with Batman Begins at all) and the Joker character was synonymous with goofy-ass Nicholson to him. When we left the cinema, he was literally speechless on the way to the car, and once we got in, he was like "holy shit, that was not what I was expecting, what a fricking great movie". Great times, and it doesn't feel like 15 years ago at all.
>What was it like when the dark knight came out in 2008?
It was crazy. There was smoke, and gunshots, then lots of police. Haven't been to a midnight premier with that kind of energy since then.
I'm a zoomer born in '98. It was badass. Sorry you're one of those late zoomers that ended up all brain damaged and mindfricked by not having a childhood without social media omnipresent in your life. I can't even imagine how much more I would hate my life if my family posted my entire childhood on Facebook or twitter.
People were mad that it didn't get a Best Picture nomination, and I remember hearing that that was part of the reason the Academy Awards moved to nominating 10 movies the next year.
We thought we were in the worst of it and things would get better. Not because we necessarily had hope, but more because we honestly couldn't imagine how bad things could actually get. This was when the subprime mortgage frickery crashed the economy. Facebook was just starting to get its hooks into the population, the Occupy movement looked promising, and "culture war" shit hadn't been coopted by the 1% to create division. Russia hadn't fully committed to their secret war against the US, and China was still biding their time. Homosexuality was still hugely controversial. It was generally accepted that gay people were born gay and that their behavior was "natural," but there was still a huge national conversation taking place about whether or not they should be allowed to marry. People jokingly referred to each other as "homosexual" and "homie." Racism was seen as largely a thing of the past and being openly racist was universally considered a HUGELY butthole move. Heath Ledger had just starred in Brokeback Mountain and solidified himself as a legendary actor. There was awards buzz all over him and the general consensus was that Ledger would be one of the greats. When he was cast as The Joker there was a pretty sizable outcry. Very few people thought he'd be any good, but Batman Begins was good enough (especially following Batman and Robin) that people were willing to give it a shot. Then the news broke that Ledger had died. In an instant it became a tragedy. Millennials, who had lost their childhood to Columbine and their innocence to 911, were made painfully aware of the specter of death. Then the Aurora Shooting happened.
What was it like watching The Dark Knight in a theater in 2008? It was like experiencing a dark catharsis. In what we believed to be the nadir of our lives we saw a goddamned good Batman movie and we knew that we would never its like again.
> Not because we necessarily had hope, but more because we honestly couldn't imagine how bad things could actually get.
mother fricking (You) for that anon
We thought we were in the worst of it and things would get better. Not because we necessarily had hope, but more because we honestly couldn't imagine how bad things could actually get. This was when the subprime mortgage frickery crashed the economy. Facebook was just starting to get its hooks into the population, the Occupy movement looked promising, and "culture war" shit hadn't been coopted by the 1% to create division. Russia hadn't fully committed to their secret war against the US, and China was still biding their time. Homosexuality was still hugely controversial. It was generally accepted that gay people were born gay and that their behavior was "natural," but there was still a huge national conversation taking place about whether or not they should be allowed to marry. People jokingly referred to each other as "homosexual" and "homie." Racism was seen as largely a thing of the past and being openly racist was universally considered a HUGELY butthole move. Heath Ledger had just starred in Brokeback Mountain and solidified himself as a legendary actor. There was awards buzz all over him and the general consensus was that Ledger would be one of the greats. When he was cast as The Joker there was a pretty sizable outcry. Very few people thought he'd be any good, but Batman Begins was good enough (especially following Batman and Robin) that people were willing to give it a shot. Then the news broke that Ledger had died. In an instant it became a tragedy. Millennials, who had lost their childhood to Columbine and their innocence to 911, were made painfully aware of the specter of death. Then the Aurora Shooting happened.
What was it like watching The Dark Knight in a theater in 2008? It was like experiencing a dark catharsis. In what we believed to be the nadir of our lives we saw a goddamned good Batman movie and we knew that we would never its like again.
Many people did the Joker monologues.
There was a moment where someone says "Stop", and people watching would say "Hammertime", or "Collaborate and listen".
People depicted Obama as the Joker
> their secret war against the US,
Doing what?
In terms of waning movements, anti-system environmentalism had been replaced by a the dynamic of the West vs "radical Islam", which was in turn replaced by pro-Bush vs pro-Obama. Which was in part about a West with relaxed relations to Islam.
This was the era before MCU shit ruined everything so mixing genre films with gritty realism felt revolutionary. Everyone in my theater walked out of The Dark Knight believing it was a masterpiece. Now I view it as an okay action movie, and above average Batman flick but those were different times. Heath also immortalized it in a way.
The Joker's nihilism and cynicism was like a mirror to edgy internet culture and atheism
the profundity of the joker in modern times is that we ARE all literally a bit, if not very, insane
I don't know if this is something crazy people say, but I've had to get a much clearer sense of my own agency (i.e. I don't talk like a policymaker about media stories, or use the collective "we" when talking about collectives I don't influence) in order to avoid derangement.
I was 27 and not 43! It will happen to you!
It was literally half a lifetime back for me. OP: The way to slow the passage of time is to do a lot that means a lot and have very different experiences, all in as short a time as possible.
This. It come out right at the initial breaking down of our social fabric and its darker themes reflected a lot of the anxiety and frustration people were feeling at the time.
I caught it on TV around 09 or 10 when I was a kid, loved it. Couldn't watch it when it came out cause it was too violent and scary even though I was playing M rated games on my ps2. Parents are fricking dumb when it comes to that stuff.
I distinctly remember Joker torturing the fake batman, that scene was the most horrifying to me back then. Now I just find it hilarious.
I remember the leak of the first Joker picture and the divided reactions. Fans of the Joker wanted Nolan gone because they feared a betrayal of their beloved character. Others were more reserved but still negative for the most part. All that changed with the first trailers. Once they saw Heath in costume, most were on board. And from that point on it was sheer hype up until the premiere.
this is why casting directors are professionals at what they do. Fancasting is always a horrible idea. Just look at what marvel did by putting Jim from the office in Doctor Strange, it was awful fan service to appease the reddit crowd and it sucked
Yep, there was a ton of backlash at idea of a Ledger joker. To zoomers, it would be probably akin to casting Gosling as Joker today
Some losers were upset at first picture leaks because joker used makeup and not acid stained skin. But from that first trailer drop everyone and I mean everyone knew this movie would be kino. Hard to explain the hype for it, but it was like a category 5 hurricane incoming and you knew it would just be a hit from the trailer alone
The movie had immense cultural impact, and is one of if not the most quotable movies from that generation. Ledgers performance transcended anything since and made people take the genre seriously. The movie also ushered in that era of “realism” and “grit” that has since subsided.
>The movie also ushered in that era of “realism” and “grit”
Honestly it was more that era's swan song, since the MCU immediately followed. The "gritty" cape era, where movies were concerned with comic book aesthetics looking ridiculous onscreen, was pretty much X-Men to TDK, with TDKR as an epilogue.
Everyone loved it. Even normie girls in hs were gushing about it class. I remember going to my second showing with my dad, and right after harvey gets rescued and says "I have an angry girlfriend to apoligize to", the power in the theater got cut by a tornado, to which some redneck in the audience said "Now I have an angry girlfriend" and everyone laughed.
Girls are watching high school musical and several other disney real life slop back then, they dont care much about le batman or joker
But still, I'd take those disney real life icarly slop type of shit over anything that we have rn
Saw it at midnight first day. Went with the hottest girl I'll ever date. They asked batman questions at a theater where they never did shit like that because people were so hyped. Everyone loved it. As I was walking out I saw some white girl say to her friends how hot heath ledger was.
Also I remember before it came out I let my gf know when heath ledger died. She freaked out and then told everyone on her bus about it and they freaked out. It was weird that girls cared about it. She even had the joker poster up before she saw the movie.
This was the era before MCU shit ruined everything so mixing genre films with gritty realism felt revolutionary. Everyone in my theater walked out of The Dark Knight believing it was a masterpiece. Now I view it as an okay action movie, and above average Batman flick but those were different times. Heath also immortalized it in a way.
>I remember smoking weed and drinking in the parking lot before the show
LOOL, my friends did the same, first movie I've gone to see in theater multiple times as an adult. Most universally beloved movie since Jurassic Park.
It was one of the major events which made comic book movies popular. Before this came out the majority of people were still picturing Adam West and Burt Ward when they thought of Batman. Before this movie, if you saw a parody of Batman in a TV show, they'd be doing a West impression, after this, they'd be doing Bale's wheezy voice. The typical normalgay couldn't even remember Micheal Keaton (even though both his movies were massive, and were fairly recent events).
A lot of nerds at the time thought of the Joker as a role model, it's hard to picture it now, but there was literally no irony to it, some nerds sincerely thought all that "we live in a society" talk was profound social commentary.
The kid friendly marketing was also notably downplayed compared to previous superhero movies. Even good comic book films like the original "Spider-Man" would have toys, cartoons, tie-in games, kid friendly novelisations, Happy Meal toys, etc to remind you that it was primarily for children. Looking back, I think this marked the point at which pretentious people started trying to advance the argument that comic book movies were equivalent to, or even better then, real movies. Obviously "Spider-Man" was huge, but you didn't have people writing long-winded articles about it, or arguing that it should have won more awards, like you did with TDK.
everyone thought it was the greatest film of all time. and there were a number of film classes requiring it for viewing in college. there were a number of dvd's being sold at the college bookstore in the required materials section
I was a 21-years-old living in Australia and the hype was unreal due to Heath Ledger dying before the movie came out and conspiracy theories ran amok that the role of The Joker was what led to his death. It is the only movie I ever saw twice in the same day at the same cinema; first early in the morning with a friend who also didn't work and then later in the evening with more friends who had to work during the day. The hype was truly unbelievable, I didn't even register Avengers: Infinity War or Endgame being as hyped but I suppose I was already in my 30's by the time they came out. I actually haven't watched The Dark Knight again since that day I saw it twice in 2008. I did see The Dark Knight Rises but I hardly remember anything about it.
It was different. Avengers had hype because you knew it was the end of the saga. TDK was this sequel to a relatively good batman movie that caught us all by surprise and everyone told their friends how good it was. There hasn't been a movie like that since, that spreads with just word of mouth.
Yeah, it's weird. Avatar came out the year after The Dark Knight and basically tripled its box-office but I don't remember the hype being as intense for some reason.
>conspiracy theories ran amok that the role of The Joker was what led to his death
kek this, I still remember people being like "Heath disappeared into the role so much it killed him" and there were people sharing a quote by Jack Nicholson saying "I tried to warn him..." or some shit, which I'm positive Jack never said lmao
Infinity War,while a great film in it's own right, had nowhere near the hype and cultural significance of this. it was more of a big deal to marveltards then it was to the overall populous.
I was disappointed when I saw it in theaters. It was pretty obtuse compared to Begins, and seems to be the film where he shifted into really extreme editing that didn't care if you had enough time to absorb what was happening.
Begins definitely felt more comic book-ish with its ancient ninja clan, Surreal hallucination crap and a cool looking Gotham. And then the Dark knight just goes full action movie like it was trying to be the bourne movies or whatever. Atleast it didn't do the pretentious close ups during the fight scenes in some attempt to make Batman seem like he's moving like a bat
people went from only nerds watching super hero movies to reassessing them as legit films over night. I was blown away cause I grew up loving BTAS and liking comics but I hadn't even seen Batman Begins but my dad took me to TDK
Umm... it was ok?
Sorry mate, we weren't having a bunch of morons doing onions face all over internet for any reason, no matter how small or making tiktoks about it.
At the very most, we'd be having some Joker guy or the kid in Punisher outfit show up on =3 or similar show on youtube.
Absolute kino. It blew people away. I remember everyone in the theatre going dead silent and still at the "Look at me. LOOK AT ME!" line, Ledger just dominated the screen every second he was on it.
The opening was awesome but the rest was boring. Im still mad cause I really liked the idea of bane and yes even ann hathaway catwomen. but the movie just kinda sucked
It was cool, before the mvoie started some started singing the na-na-na- batman adam west theme and everyone joined in. a kid dressed as joker rushed to the front row and started pretend fighting with a kid dressed as batman and people cheered. im not lying when I say that there has never been a more memorable experience for me in theaters. people just got along and were all hyped for the movie and enjoyed it,
I was in the Middle East on a Navy Ship, we had to bootleg the movie to see it. My ship Gen-X buddies didn't like the ending. Gen-Y kids come aboard a year later and we the play the movie legally , it was the best thing in the world to them.
I was swabbing decks and fixing computer systems, but hitting port and going a shore I was sweating balls to the floor in the sun. That bootleg was blurry also.
I was 9 when this came out but my dad took my bros and I to go see the midnight premiere (back when they still had those) even then I thought “this shit rules” and it still does. Better times, better times.
I remember getting goosebumps watching the trailer for the first time. When Heath died it became a must see. The day it came out a car full of my buddies and I smuggled two 40ozs each into the theater and by the end I was trashed.When it ended, I spent the next hour imitating Heath's performance much to the dislike of my comrades. Then we smoked a blunt and everyone went home.
Hype was real, this was pre "capeshit fatigue"
News of Heat Legend's death seemingly invigorated interest in movie
Even before that there was a lot of hype about Joker being featured. The old batman movies were suddenly extremely silly (they were always silly but still considered very dark compared to the other superhero fare of the day) (which was basically just superman)
I went on opening night at the biggest theater in town. People literally and unironically clapped when the semi got flipped over.
It was the must-see movie of that summer and it was considered the greatest superhero movie of all time and its score on IMDB got highly inflated and the heath's joker became a massive meme (not in a disparaging way even - it was a cultural icon and 30 million people were the joker for halloween that halloween and a big anti-obama meme was a picture of him in joker makeup with the caption "why so socialist?" which is pretty funny in retrospect)
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few cried. Most people were silent. I remembered a quote from Roger Ebert: "Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius."
>made by people you've never heard of
Nolan was already pretty famous by then. The reason TDK smashed up to the top of the imdb chart was because he had already developed a rabid following of fanboys.
He was pretty famous though. I discovered him around 2005, Batman Begins and the Prestige were popular and got big ratings on imdb top 250, where Memento had also sat for years.
I would argue inception was the movie that made him a household name. A lot of people seem to forget that one of the reasons why Tdk was a success was because it’s Batman at the end of the day.
Inception was a completely original idea, that pretty much smashed the summer box office and solidified him as a name that will bring in millions.
Nah, Inception was already the "movie by the director of The Dark Knight" more than being its own thing. What Inception did was solidify Nolan as the loud BWAAANG trailer guy
I was only 8 years old and vividly recall everyone in class circlejerking over it. I was a spider man kid and got rightfully bullied for thinking spider man 3 was cooler. 2 would beat it out though if it came out in the same Year. Why are ‘zoomer’ posters unable to recall anything in their adolescent Years? Are your brains scrambled?
People were really angry about Heath Ledger being the Joker, then he died and they pretended they weren't angry about that and also pretended his performance was groundbreaking and unbelievable. It was good, don't get me wrong, but Jesus fricking Christ, bro, it was not the invention of the fricking wheel.
It was an event, the world still made sense. Obama being elected was the writing on the wall but we didn't take heed, 2012 was where things took a turn and 2016 where they absolutely went to hell and here we are now.
I swear, last movie event I went to was perhaps Avatar or this. It was truly an event, everyone saw it and you told everyone to see it.
Trump is controlled opposition and a golem, get a grip. Always has been. Sure, things were better during his tenure (slightly) but you're delusional if you think he had any hand in that.
I thought it was alright but I didn't really think it was as good as everyone want hyping it up to be. especially ledger's performance which I thought was overrated. plus the movie insisted upon itself, the plot made no sense and it had no establishing shots
It was very hyped up, there was an insane amount of marketing promoting it. Heath Ledger being cast was very controversial because audiences mainly knew him from Brokeback Mountain. His death just before the film came out put the film even more in the public consciousness. Most people thought it was great, a handful complained because they thought it was too dark and gritty. There was a bit of controversy over the PG13 rating because of certain scenes like the pencil and when Joker slashes that guy's face.
The cinema was packed full of attractive 18-25 year olds all dressed up like they were going out. I’d never seen it that busy. I guess everyone was home for summer from uni. I saw step brothers at the same cinema not long after and there was like 10 people there
The only other time I was in a cinema like that was seeing the last Harry Potter film in this cinema in the student area I was living in for uni, but no one was glammed up
it was the last real "blockbuster" in the true sense of the word. I went to my local theater opening night and there were so many people that the crowd was overflowing into the parking lot. The hype was real, no movies have come anywhere close since. That same theater just closed down last year. Hollywood will still keep throwing around the word "blockbuster" in the future, but I don't think we'll ever see a real one anymore moving forward
I was 15 when it came out. wasn't really paying attention to prerelease hype, but I remember Heath Ledger dying being a big deal and building hype. The trailer looked sick I must've watched it 30 times before seeing the movie. My friend's older brother saw it opening night and said it was the best superhero movie ever, by far. people were praising heath ledger's performance as singularly incredible. Theater experience blew my mind, right from the opening bank heist. Right away became my favorite movie of all time. When we came back to school that fall kids were quoting it nonstop.
I feel like that late 2000s period there was a ton of shit in quick succession that targeted teenage boys in such a tangible way, like Dark Knight, 300, Halo 3, COD4, Usain Bolt, Guitar Hero 3. It felt like that subgenre of pop culture became tired very shortly after, but 2007-2008 was a crazy time to be a pubescent boy.
Really OTT hype before and during the release. My friends and I showed up early for the showing but the theater was already packed and we had to sit against the back wall. The hype didn't die down until that autumn probably.
It's the only movie in theatres I've seen where afterwards people clapped. I live in Australia so that's pretty rare. It basically hit all of the beats that people wanted, and normies felt much more comfortable saying they enjoy superhero flicks. It elevated the genre for a time.
My dad was hyped for it I guess since we saw Begins in the cinema which was good; Scarecrow was creepy. First watched it on a bootleg DVD and it was too dark to see what was going on most of the time. Lol.
I remember the radio and news in my country covering about Ledger's death nonstop.
Saw it Opening Night (midnight) with a packed crowd. There was cheering during the Gordon reveal and reaction to the Joker's pencil trick.
Personally, I felt in my bones I was watching a 4 star movie, the same way I felt underwhelmed by TDKR. I didn't know TDK would be so influential, but I knew it was great.
it got rated the top movie on IMDB. There was also a huge ad for it on the front page of MySpace, I remember people talking about it on myspace chatrooms and I left because I didn't want it spoiled.
oldgay here. this movie surprised everyone especially being a sequel. ledger dying changed the entire tone. it was a depiction of pre and post 9/11 where the joker represented the post 9/11 world where nothing mattered anymore only existential dread. fricking iconic.
I went in without having seen Batman Begins and barely seeing any commercials of this (I was playing Burning Crusade all the time) and remember being astounded by how fun it was.
The world was still a fun place. Things didn't truly start going bad until 2012 or so.
This. Past 10 years have just been existing, not living.
>Economic collapse
>Fun place
You should be thankful that your parents didn't get laid off
Inflation is ~120% where I live. You coddled Western homosexuals haven't seen a REAL recession in nearly a century.
>parents
I worked somewhere where everybody got the chance to accept a 20% pay decrease. Those who didnt accept were laid off and ended up having to apply for McDonalds and warehousing jobs even though they had masters degrees and decades of professional experience. Millenials and zoomers are about to experience hell for the next 10 or so years themselves as rising cost of living continues to outpace their wages
Nah. 9/11 decisively killed the fun phase we had been riding since the 1940s overnight. 2002-2006 was a strange period where people were coming down from the high not quite comprehending how rapidly the world had changed. In 2007 there was another huge overnight drop with a myriad of causes that culminated in the collapse of the economy in 2008 (which we never recovered from). There was a brief interlude in 2012 for some odd reason that I can't pin down, but that year was just fun and hopeful for some odd reason, it felt like we had miraculously warped back to 2001 but for just one year. From 2013 onward everything got progressively worse.
Everyone who was alive ane cognizant then recognizes 2001 was the year the fun ended and 2007 was the year we went off the cliff. If you think any of the years after 2001 were good (excepting 2012) that just means you either weren't alive yet or you were a kid and childhood years are always good years for the person themselves.
What was it about 2012? That was the last year I remember really enjoying
The Mayan's were right
weirdly a very connected feeling. Like "man I was dumb" but then I remember everyone across the globe was, at least for a day.
not him but I think people deep down genuinely thought the world would end in 2012.
Party Rockers
Simple as
I got luck with my early childhood then.
I was born in 92 and the kid shows back then were kino.
>9/11 decisively killed the fun phase we had been riding since the 1940s overnight
We survived. JFK's assassination was the 9/11 of the 60s (another extremely manic decade) and many people are nostalgic for that decade. I would say iPhones and social media were really the death knell for human society. So the Mayans were right.
>iPhones and social media were really the death knell for human society. So the Mayans were right.
This definitely opened the floodgates. It took about a decade for the third world to fully ingratiate themselves online with everyone else. At that point, all of the major sites shitposters used became monetized. Even the innocuous subreddits highlighting clown world between 2016 and 2019 slowly got culled from existence.
2009 marked the official end of the second millennium
Wouldn't call it "fun" because it was the time of a major economic downturn, but I get what you mean. People were wrecked, and people were angry, but it was mostly at the political and banking establishments. This everpresent bitterness that we currently hold even towards each other, with people cutting their families off and such, wasn't there yet. A time in which the hot button wedge issue is public health care looks like a fricking utopia by now.
There was a mass shooting and everyone started blaming incels for everything
That was the Dark Knight Rises. The Dark Knight was still the halcyon days before dating apps
It was incredibly popular... I remember thinking joker's sloppy makeup was off-putting when first seeing the previews, but totally changed my mind after seeing the movie. When Ledger died, I knew someone who publicly declared on facebook that his death was a hoax and refused to accept he was gone. She would fight anyone who tried to tell her otherwise.
You guys are so fricking stupid. The shooting happened during the 3rd movie, not the 2nd. If you're going to make an edgy joke at least know what you're fricking talking about.
>edgy joke
I don't joke.
Why so serious?
>The shooting happened during the 3rd movie, not the 2nd
Oh no, I just got mandela effected!
My co-workers were worried Dark Knight Rises was going to suck. I ended up taking my little brother to see it and we liked it. Next day at work we see that A-Hole on the news who shot up the theater.
You know what's worse? The guy only picked TDKR because he knew it was going to be packed. The media ran with the story that Joker inspired him based on his dye (?) and the assumptions of a policeman at the scene.
Wrong movie dickhead
Six?
>hey what's your favourite musical?
Million?
I saw it opening night, and I could tell that everyone knew it was going to be a classic as they were watching it. You could hear a pin drop during the scene where the Joker shows up to the mob meeting.
This was before mega-budget Hollywood entertainment started going edgy and feigning a sort of realism, so the tone of the movie was totally unexpected to normies.
Anyone else remember the massive backlash the movie got when it was announced Heath Ledger is going to be Joker? Man, it was savage with the "we don't want a homosexual Joker!" on account that Ledger was coming off Brokeback Mountain.
>This was before mega-budget Hollywood entertainment started going edgy and feigning a sort of realism, so the tone of the movie was totally unexpected to normies.
This exactly. I remember trying to persuade my brother in law to drive me to the cinema (I didn't have my license yet as I was 16) and see the film with me, and he was like "man, I don't wanna see a goofy Batman movie" - the last Batman movie he saw was Batman & Robin (he wasn't familiar with Batman Begins at all) and the Joker character was synonymous with goofy-ass Nicholson to him. When we left the cinema, he was literally speechless on the way to the car, and once we got in, he was like "holy shit, that was not what I was expecting, what a fricking great movie". Great times, and it doesn't feel like 15 years ago at all.
Yeah but in retrospect I still think he's the best Joker
>What was it like when the dark knight came out in 2008?
It was crazy. There was smoke, and gunshots, then lots of police. Haven't been to a midnight premier with that kind of energy since then.
I'm a zoomer born in '98. It was badass. Sorry you're one of those late zoomers that ended up all brain damaged and mindfricked by not having a childhood without social media omnipresent in your life. I can't even imagine how much more I would hate my life if my family posted my entire childhood on Facebook or twitter.
people realized how good it was right away
People were mad that it didn't get a Best Picture nomination, and I remember hearing that that was part of the reason the Academy Awards moved to nominating 10 movies the next year.
Best movie ever, the Batpod scene occupied my and my friends' brain space for days.
I didn't watch it in theaters. A friend told me it was good and I thought he was shitting me. I watched it later on the small screen.
saw it on a legit iMax and mentally shat bricks
> Not because we necessarily had hope, but more because we honestly couldn't imagine how bad things could actually get.
mother fricking (You) for that anon
We thought we were in the worst of it and things would get better. Not because we necessarily had hope, but more because we honestly couldn't imagine how bad things could actually get. This was when the subprime mortgage frickery crashed the economy. Facebook was just starting to get its hooks into the population, the Occupy movement looked promising, and "culture war" shit hadn't been coopted by the 1% to create division. Russia hadn't fully committed to their secret war against the US, and China was still biding their time. Homosexuality was still hugely controversial. It was generally accepted that gay people were born gay and that their behavior was "natural," but there was still a huge national conversation taking place about whether or not they should be allowed to marry. People jokingly referred to each other as "homosexual" and "homie." Racism was seen as largely a thing of the past and being openly racist was universally considered a HUGELY butthole move. Heath Ledger had just starred in Brokeback Mountain and solidified himself as a legendary actor. There was awards buzz all over him and the general consensus was that Ledger would be one of the greats. When he was cast as The Joker there was a pretty sizable outcry. Very few people thought he'd be any good, but Batman Begins was good enough (especially following Batman and Robin) that people were willing to give it a shot. Then the news broke that Ledger had died. In an instant it became a tragedy. Millennials, who had lost their childhood to Columbine and their innocence to 911, were made painfully aware of the specter of death. Then the Aurora Shooting happened.
What was it like watching The Dark Knight in a theater in 2008? It was like experiencing a dark catharsis. In what we believed to be the nadir of our lives we saw a goddamned good Batman movie and we knew that we would never its like again.
Many people did the Joker monologues.
There was a moment where someone says "Stop", and people watching would say "Hammertime", or "Collaborate and listen".
People depicted Obama as the Joker
> their secret war against the US,
Doing what?
In terms of waning movements, anti-system environmentalism had been replaced by a the dynamic of the West vs "radical Islam", which was in turn replaced by pro-Bush vs pro-Obama. Which was in part about a West with relaxed relations to Islam.
The Joker's nihilism and cynicism was like a mirror to edgy internet culture and atheism
I don't know if this is something crazy people say, but I've had to get a much clearer sense of my own agency (i.e. I don't talk like a policymaker about media stories, or use the collective "we" when talking about collectives I don't influence) in order to avoid derangement.
It was literally half a lifetime back for me. OP: The way to slow the passage of time is to do a lot that means a lot and have very different experiences, all in as short a time as possible.
This. It come out right at the initial breaking down of our social fabric and its darker themes reflected a lot of the anxiety and frustration people were feeling at the time.
Well done.
I caught it on TV around 09 or 10 when I was a kid, loved it. Couldn't watch it when it came out cause it was too violent and scary even though I was playing M rated games on my ps2. Parents are fricking dumb when it comes to that stuff.
I distinctly remember Joker torturing the fake batman, that scene was the most horrifying to me back then. Now I just find it hilarious.
I remember the leak of the first Joker picture and the divided reactions. Fans of the Joker wanted Nolan gone because they feared a betrayal of their beloved character. Others were more reserved but still negative for the most part. All that changed with the first trailers. Once they saw Heath in costume, most were on board. And from that point on it was sheer hype up until the premiere.
The Imax leak was massive, global opinion changed overnight. Comparable to the Deus Ex HR leak.
Oh the bank heist? Yes, that was something else, agreed. Everyone talked about it.
Funny, he still looks very Heath Ledgery here. Probably an early test make up before they decided to add more stuff to hide his face a bit further
lmao, was Cinemaphile really like this?
I'd love to laugh in these homosexuals faces now
this is why casting directors are professionals at what they do. Fancasting is always a horrible idea. Just look at what marvel did by putting Jim from the office in Doctor Strange, it was awful fan service to appease the reddit crowd and it sucked
Yep, there was a ton of backlash at idea of a Ledger joker. To zoomers, it would be probably akin to casting Gosling as Joker today
Some losers were upset at first picture leaks because joker used makeup and not acid stained skin. But from that first trailer drop everyone and I mean everyone knew this movie would be kino. Hard to explain the hype for it, but it was like a category 5 hurricane incoming and you knew it would just be a hit from the trailer alone
The movie had immense cultural impact, and is one of if not the most quotable movies from that generation. Ledgers performance transcended anything since and made people take the genre seriously. The movie also ushered in that era of “realism” and “grit” that has since subsided.
All in all a very rare experience.
>The movie also ushered in that era of “realism” and “grit”
Honestly it was more that era's swan song, since the MCU immediately followed. The "gritty" cape era, where movies were concerned with comic book aesthetics looking ridiculous onscreen, was pretty much X-Men to TDK, with TDKR as an epilogue.
Everyone loved it. Even normie girls in hs were gushing about it class. I remember going to my second showing with my dad, and right after harvey gets rescued and says "I have an angry girlfriend to apoligize to", the power in the theater got cut by a tornado, to which some redneck in the audience said "Now I have an angry girlfriend" and everyone laughed.
And then everyone clapped and collectively sharted
Girls are watching high school musical and several other disney real life slop back then, they dont care much about le batman or joker
But still, I'd take those disney real life icarly slop type of shit over anything that we have rn
Saw it at midnight first day. Went with the hottest girl I'll ever date. They asked batman questions at a theater where they never did shit like that because people were so hyped. Everyone loved it. As I was walking out I saw some white girl say to her friends how hot heath ledger was.
Also I remember before it came out I let my gf know when heath ledger died. She freaked out and then told everyone on her bus about it and they freaked out. It was weird that girls cared about it. She even had the joker poster up before she saw the movie.
I was 7 when that came out. Didn't see it in theaters but I did watch it on demand later that year.
Got to see it in theaters in 2020 though. That was a lot of fun 🙂
This was the era before MCU shit ruined everything so mixing genre films with gritty realism felt revolutionary. Everyone in my theater walked out of The Dark Knight believing it was a masterpiece. Now I view it as an okay action movie, and above average Batman flick but those were different times. Heath also immortalized it in a way.
it was quite literally a different time
Well duh moron. It was 15 years ago.
Saw it on opening night. I remember smoking weed and drinking in the parking lot before the show. It was a better time
>I remember smoking weed and drinking in the parking lot before the show
LOOL, my friends did the same, first movie I've gone to see in theater multiple times as an adult. Most universally beloved movie since Jurassic Park.
It was one of the major events which made comic book movies popular. Before this came out the majority of people were still picturing Adam West and Burt Ward when they thought of Batman. Before this movie, if you saw a parody of Batman in a TV show, they'd be doing a West impression, after this, they'd be doing Bale's wheezy voice. The typical normalgay couldn't even remember Micheal Keaton (even though both his movies were massive, and were fairly recent events).
A lot of nerds at the time thought of the Joker as a role model, it's hard to picture it now, but there was literally no irony to it, some nerds sincerely thought all that "we live in a society" talk was profound social commentary.
The kid friendly marketing was also notably downplayed compared to previous superhero movies. Even good comic book films like the original "Spider-Man" would have toys, cartoons, tie-in games, kid friendly novelisations, Happy Meal toys, etc to remind you that it was primarily for children. Looking back, I think this marked the point at which pretentious people started trying to advance the argument that comic book movies were equivalent to, or even better then, real movies. Obviously "Spider-Man" was huge, but you didn't have people writing long-winded articles about it, or arguing that it should have won more awards, like you did with TDK.
the profundity of the joker in modern times is that we ARE all literally a bit, if not very, insane
I was 27 and not 43! It will happen to you!
I'm 27 years old. Thanks for the heads up, anon.
I was still a kid and had a bunch of Dark Knight action figures and shit that were released
It was probably the loudest film I've ever seen in theaters
everyone thought it was the greatest film of all time. and there were a number of film classes requiring it for viewing in college. there were a number of dvd's being sold at the college bookstore in the required materials section
It was 10x bigger than infinity war.
Pretty gay.
I was a 21-years-old living in Australia and the hype was unreal due to Heath Ledger dying before the movie came out and conspiracy theories ran amok that the role of The Joker was what led to his death. It is the only movie I ever saw twice in the same day at the same cinema; first early in the morning with a friend who also didn't work and then later in the evening with more friends who had to work during the day. The hype was truly unbelievable, I didn't even register Avengers: Infinity War or Endgame being as hyped but I suppose I was already in my 30's by the time they came out. I actually haven't watched The Dark Knight again since that day I saw it twice in 2008. I did see The Dark Knight Rises but I hardly remember anything about it.
It was different. Avengers had hype because you knew it was the end of the saga. TDK was this sequel to a relatively good batman movie that caught us all by surprise and everyone told their friends how good it was. There hasn't been a movie like that since, that spreads with just word of mouth.
Yeah, it's weird. Avatar came out the year after The Dark Knight and basically tripled its box-office but I don't remember the hype being as intense for some reason.
People loved avatar too, though I think its fair to say..it was a different type of appreciation..if that makes sense.
>conspiracy theories ran amok that the role of The Joker was what led to his death
kek this, I still remember people being like "Heath disappeared into the role so much it killed him" and there were people sharing a quote by Jack Nicholson saying "I tried to warn him..." or some shit, which I'm positive Jack never said lmao
Infinity War,while a great film in it's own right, had nowhere near the hype and cultural significance of this. it was more of a big deal to marveltards then it was to the overall populous.
It was beloved and popular enough at the time that the Oscars were buck broken and changed the rules.
Peak of America, it was all downhill from there
Most people only saw it because he killed himself and they felt obligated to say his last role was a genius performance.
Eternal cope.
"Why so serious" was "you mad bro" for a while
I was disappointed when I saw it in theaters. It was pretty obtuse compared to Begins, and seems to be the film where he shifted into really extreme editing that didn't care if you had enough time to absorb what was happening.
Begins definitely felt more comic book-ish with its ancient ninja clan, Surreal hallucination crap and a cool looking Gotham. And then the Dark knight just goes full action movie like it was trying to be the bourne movies or whatever. Atleast it didn't do the pretentious close ups during the fight scenes in some attempt to make Batman seem like he's moving like a bat
Men didn’t force other men into believing they are women. It was a more logical time.
There are trannies in the room with me now.
no one believed the guy from 10 things i hate about you and a knights tale could play a good joker, they were wrong
*right
people went from only nerds watching super hero movies to reassessing them as legit films over night. I was blown away cause I grew up loving BTAS and liking comics but I hadn't even seen Batman Begins but my dad took me to TDK
Umm... it was ok?
Sorry mate, we weren't having a bunch of morons doing onions face all over internet for any reason, no matter how small or making tiktoks about it.
At the very most, we'd be having some Joker guy or the kid in Punisher outfit show up on =3 or similar show on youtube.
Absolute kino. It blew people away. I remember everyone in the theatre going dead silent and still at the "Look at me. LOOK AT ME!" line, Ledger just dominated the screen every second he was on it.
Everyone in a cinema should be quiet throughout the film
Reading this thread really puts into perspective how disappointing TDKR is.
The opening was awesome but the rest was boring. Im still mad cause I really liked the idea of bane and yes even ann hathaway catwomen. but the movie just kinda sucked
Memes aside, Bane was fricking lame. They should've gone with a more comic accurate version.
Javier bordem would have been perfect, a great actor who look character right off the page.
The best thing TDKR has going for it is that it's completely moronic
It was cool, before the mvoie started some started singing the na-na-na- batman adam west theme and everyone joined in. a kid dressed as joker rushed to the front row and started pretend fighting with a kid dressed as batman and people cheered. im not lying when I say that there has never been a more memorable experience for me in theaters. people just got along and were all hyped for the movie and enjoyed it,
I was in the Middle East on a Navy Ship, we had to bootleg the movie to see it. My ship Gen-X buddies didn't like the ending. Gen-Y kids come aboard a year later and we the play the movie legally , it was the best thing in the world to them.
sounds shitty, i saw it in IMAX with my dad and little brother while you were scrubbing floors.
I was swabbing decks and fixing computer systems, but hitting port and going a shore I was sweating balls to the floor in the sun. That bootleg was blurry also.
To be fair, at the time I was bummed that I had to wait a few more years to see Batman clean his name.
Yall a bunch of bold face liars
no one gived a frick bout the movie till joker actor killed himself
It's a good thing he did it before the movie came out then.
so no one gave a frick about the movie until before it came out?
No, you just didn't pay attention.
I was 9 when this came out but my dad took my bros and I to go see the midnight premiere (back when they still had those) even then I thought “this shit rules” and it still does. Better times, better times.
>(back when they still had those)
They still have those, stupid
my family saw it 4 times my mom and dad really liked it for some reason
I remember getting goosebumps watching the trailer for the first time. When Heath died it became a must see. The day it came out a car full of my buddies and I smuggled two 40ozs each into the theater and by the end I was trashed.When it ended, I spent the next hour imitating Heath's performance much to the dislike of my comrades. Then we smoked a blunt and everyone went home.
Hype was real, this was pre "capeshit fatigue"
News of Heat Legend's death seemingly invigorated interest in movie
Even before that there was a lot of hype about Joker being featured. The old batman movies were suddenly extremely silly (they were always silly but still considered very dark compared to the other superhero fare of the day) (which was basically just superman)
I went on opening night at the biggest theater in town. People literally and unironically clapped when the semi got flipped over.
It was the must-see movie of that summer and it was considered the greatest superhero movie of all time and its score on IMDB got highly inflated and the heath's joker became a massive meme (not in a disparaging way even - it was a cultural icon and 30 million people were the joker for halloween that halloween and a big anti-obama meme was a picture of him in joker makeup with the caption "why so socialist?" which is pretty funny in retrospect)
Idk kid you had to be there.
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few cried. Most people were silent. I remembered a quote from Roger Ebert: "Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius."
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another
>made by people you've never heard of
Nolan was already pretty famous by then. The reason TDK smashed up to the top of the imdb chart was because he had already developed a rabid following of fanboys.
Bullshit. He wasn't nearly as famous as he became after tdk. He might have been famous to movie nerds but tdk made him a household name
He was pretty famous though. I discovered him around 2005, Batman Begins and the Prestige were popular and got big ratings on imdb top 250, where Memento had also sat for years.
I would argue inception was the movie that made him a household name. A lot of people seem to forget that one of the reasons why Tdk was a success was because it’s Batman at the end of the day.
Inception was a completely original idea, that pretty much smashed the summer box office and solidified him as a name that will bring in millions.
Nah, Inception was already the "movie by the director of The Dark Knight" more than being its own thing. What Inception did was solidify Nolan as the loud BWAAANG trailer guy
everyone was doing a batman impression
The joker was unironically seen as badass. I remember big cholos with joker t-shirts.
teenagers and 20-somethings adopted an entirely new personality.
I was only 8 years old and vividly recall everyone in class circlejerking over it. I was a spider man kid and got rightfully bullied for thinking spider man 3 was cooler. 2 would beat it out though if it came out in the same Year. Why are ‘zoomer’ posters unable to recall anything in their adolescent Years? Are your brains scrambled?
Cinemaphile was wallpapered with Joker memes. Probably THE biggest meme in this site's entire history.
>Probably THE biggest meme in this site's entire history.
He wasn’t alone.
People were really angry about Heath Ledger being the Joker, then he died and they pretended they weren't angry about that and also pretended his performance was groundbreaking and unbelievable. It was good, don't get me wrong, but Jesus fricking Christ, bro, it was not the invention of the fricking wheel.
It was legendary. Bigger than Infinity War and No Way Home.
It was an event, the world still made sense. Obama being elected was the writing on the wall but we didn't take heed, 2012 was where things took a turn and 2016 where they absolutely went to hell and here we are now.
I swear, last movie event I went to was perhaps Avatar or this. It was truly an event, everyone saw it and you told everyone to see it.
2014 and 15 were hell, the only saving grace was the start of the Trump campaign.
Trump is controlled opposition and a golem, get a grip. Always has been. Sure, things were better during his tenure (slightly) but you're delusional if you think he had any hand in that.
it was shit. I was already 23. easily the worst period of my life
it was gay
I thought it was alright but I didn't really think it was as good as everyone want hyping it up to be. especially ledger's performance which I thought was overrated. plus the movie insisted upon itself, the plot made no sense and it had no establishing shots
i remember everyone was really hyped about it. i wanted to take the girl i had a crush on to see it but i never did
and look at you now
I'm divorced
dont remind me
I'm female now
I first came to Cinemaphile in 2008 and the threads on TDK were what kept me here. Good times
I watched the 10 year anniversary in IMAX back in 2018. Good times
It was very hyped up, there was an insane amount of marketing promoting it. Heath Ledger being cast was very controversial because audiences mainly knew him from Brokeback Mountain. His death just before the film came out put the film even more in the public consciousness. Most people thought it was great, a handful complained because they thought it was too dark and gritty. There was a bit of controversy over the PG13 rating because of certain scenes like the pencil and when Joker slashes that guy's face.
The cinema was packed full of attractive 18-25 year olds all dressed up like they were going out. I’d never seen it that busy. I guess everyone was home for summer from uni. I saw step brothers at the same cinema not long after and there was like 10 people there
The only other time I was in a cinema like that was seeing the last Harry Potter film in this cinema in the student area I was living in for uni, but no one was glammed up
I remember this poster from the election. Funny shit.
I remember it fondly. I ate my first ass in that theater. It tasted like poop
cows don't count rasheesh
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This shit was so hilarious back in the day. Everyone and their grandma was making fun of Bale's gravelly Batman voice.
I remember everyone at school saying it was better than spiderman 3
I remember this
t. another zoomer
I got one of those $5 boxes from Taco Bell a couple days ago and that shit costs $11 gucking dollars now under Biden. Insane.
the name batman was on the streets
His name was on the street? Joker call 'im a punk?
it was the last real "blockbuster" in the true sense of the word. I went to my local theater opening night and there were so many people that the crowd was overflowing into the parking lot. The hype was real, no movies have come anywhere close since. That same theater just closed down last year. Hollywood will still keep throwing around the word "blockbuster" in the future, but I don't think we'll ever see a real one anymore moving forward
I was 15 when it came out. wasn't really paying attention to prerelease hype, but I remember Heath Ledger dying being a big deal and building hype. The trailer looked sick I must've watched it 30 times before seeing the movie. My friend's older brother saw it opening night and said it was the best superhero movie ever, by far. people were praising heath ledger's performance as singularly incredible. Theater experience blew my mind, right from the opening bank heist. Right away became my favorite movie of all time. When we came back to school that fall kids were quoting it nonstop.
I feel like that late 2000s period there was a ton of shit in quick succession that targeted teenage boys in such a tangible way, like Dark Knight, 300, Halo 3, COD4, Usain Bolt, Guitar Hero 3. It felt like that subgenre of pop culture became tired very shortly after, but 2007-2008 was a crazy time to be a pubescent boy.
I thought it was trash.
better
it was "epic" and "4 teh win" as us youngsters used to say back in the day
Really OTT hype before and during the release. My friends and I showed up early for the showing but the theater was already packed and we had to sit against the back wall. The hype didn't die down until that autumn probably.
It's the only movie in theatres I've seen where afterwards people clapped. I live in Australia so that's pretty rare. It basically hit all of the beats that people wanted, and normies felt much more comfortable saying they enjoy superhero flicks. It elevated the genre for a time.
every mf had some sort of fixation with this guy: edgy quotes, ringtones, t-shirts, etc
i dunno what these mongs are gassing you about. it was much of a non-event.
>elder millenial
one of the few hyped blockbusters that actually lived up to it in my book
t. 13 years old in 2008
My dad was hyped for it I guess since we saw Begins in the cinema which was good; Scarecrow was creepy. First watched it on a bootleg DVD and it was too dark to see what was going on most of the time. Lol.
I remember the radio and news in my country covering about Ledger's death nonstop.
Halo 3, CoD4 and Battlefield Bad Company took away all my time as a 14-15 year old, I wasn't paying attention to the outside world
Saw it at the theater night it came out, it was simpler times
Saw it Opening Night (midnight) with a packed crowd. There was cheering during the Gordon reveal and reaction to the Joker's pencil trick.
Personally, I felt in my bones I was watching a 4 star movie, the same way I felt underwhelmed by TDKR. I didn't know TDK would be so influential, but I knew it was great.
i was hyped for it and discussed the movie on my favorite rpg maker forum.
it got rated the top movie on IMDB. There was also a huge ad for it on the front page of MySpace, I remember people talking about it on myspace chatrooms and I left because I didn't want it spoiled.
oldgay here. this movie surprised everyone especially being a sequel. ledger dying changed the entire tone. it was a depiction of pre and post 9/11 where the joker represented the post 9/11 world where nothing mattered anymore only existential dread. fricking iconic.
I went in without having seen Batman Begins and barely seeing any commercials of this (I was playing Burning Crusade all the time) and remember being astounded by how fun it was.
All YouTube videos just became Dark Knight parodies for like 2 years
There were no zoomers on the internet and it was great.
Was good, since the first kino was kino. And the Joker actor was praised by critics.