REACTION REVERIE: Christopher Nolan postpones naming Harvey Two-Face's victims during 'The Dark Knight DB Live Screening'

What does not make sense to fans of "The Dark Knight," and what is probably sparingly mentioned because of their love for the movie, are the identities of the five people Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Two-Face killed.

"Five dead? Two of them cops?" Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon says toward the end of the movie, even though the character's math is a bit fuzzy to anyone who kept count. This might be a screenplay snafu that director Christopher Nolan did not deny or confirm during The "The Dark Knight BD Live Screening" on December 18, saying that he would clarify the identity of the five bodies at another time.

Harvey Two-Face's first confirmed victim in the movie is Detective Michael Wuertz (Ron Dean), who is the Gotham City police officer that drives the soon-to-be-crazed district attorney to the warehouse where his face is scarred.

That is one of the two mentioned cops.

Next on Harvey Two-Face's hit list is the man driving Eric Robert's Sal Maroni, whose murder causes the car they are in to swerve out of control and then flip over. What is not seen in "The Dark Knight" is Maroni's fate after the crash, the death of which could be included in Jim Gordon's five-man body count. That would make three.

Before Harvey Two-Face shoots Maroni's driver, the mobster out of fear for his life shares that Detective Anna Ramirez is the police officer that drove Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) to the warehouse where she was killed in an explosion. But when Harvey Two-Face confronts Ramirez, the result of a coin flip dictates that he simply knock her out with his gun. Maybe his gun fatally hit Ramirez in the temple.

That leaves a generous body count of four people, with one person accounted for in Jim Gordon's estimate.

Could the last murder, or other murders, be explained in a sequel to "The Dark Knight"?

Such a revelation about Harvey Two-Face would be in accordance with Nolan's style of making movies about complex characters, and a physical deformity or a personal tragedy is too simple of an explanation as to why someone so altruistic snapped.

Maybe he snapped earlier than fans of "The Dark Knight" think.

It is also not unprecedented in terms of past DC Comics storylines to have Harvey Dent whacking people before his face is scarred.

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REVERIE: The Batpod debunks 'The Incredibles' cape controversy, reveals potential Batman 3 plot detail

"The Dark Knight" filmmakers proved that Edna 'E' Mode from "The Incredibles" is partially wrong about capes. They can be as fashionable as they are functionable.

Her argument for not including a cape in a redesigned suit for Mr. Incredible was that other superheroes met their ends in the past when their capes were caught in missiles, jet turbines, express elevators and vortexes. That might be true with the exception of the real-life Batpod.

"We felt that the cape would immediately get caught in the rear tire and pull the rider off," said "The Dark Knight" Director Christopher Nolan about originally conceiving in the story to have the memory fabric cape fold up into a backpack-like shape so as to avoid any entanglements.

"But as Chris (Corbould, special effects supervisor), and his guys started tests with the running of the bike with the costume on, they found that in fact it picks up the wind right away and it never actually got caught in the wheel," Nolan said in "Gotham Uncovered: Creation of a Scene: Evolution of The Knight," a special feature of "The Dark Knight" DVD and Blue-ray.

Serendipity seemed to agree with Nolan that it would not have looked quite like The Batman if he were riding the The Bat-pod without his signature cape flowing in the breeze.

Aside from flash, the cape lacks substance for the vigilante's crime fighting exploits when he is not gliding through the Gotham skyline. Like the suit, the cape should be improved or better utilized to function as even more of an asset to justify its defect as a potential liability. Perhaps a sequel to "The Dark Knight" will reveal its other possible uses.

DC Comics writers and 1995's "Batman Forever" envisioned the cape as being bullet-proof or flame retardant. Though these seem like viable cape functions, they have already been executed on the silver screen and would rob the need for The Batman to be quick on his feet. 

 

Instead of finding new ways to make The Batman as invincible as Superman, screenwriters should use the cape as a way to show his resourcefulness while in a tight spot. After all, he is already mostly bullet-proof, and it is unrealistic to portray him as anticipating and preparing for every possible predicament with some convenient gadget.

The fabric could be used as a way to hide the exposed part of his face in the darkness, a secondary mask should the original become damaged, a sling should his arm sustain injury, a hiding place for backup gadgets should his primary arsenal be rendered useless, a guard with which to run into a burning doorway when soaked in water, or as a man-sized diversion when it is electrically charged and becomes rigid.

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REACTION REVIEW: Christopher Nolan says 'The Dark Knight' sequel depends on coming up with an interesting new direction

Christopher Nolan recently spoke with a Los Angeles Times Web logger about the prospect of directing a sequel to "The Dark Knight," saying it all depends on him developing deep interest in a new story

"Is there a story that’s going to keep me emotionally invested for the couple of years that it will take to make another one? That's the overriding question," Nolan said, alluding to the dilemma involved in making a viable second movie, let alone a third installment.  

Nolan is dead-on in his assertion, at least in regard to sequels to successful comic book movie adaptations that become redundant and linger on with seemingly nowhere to go. The following five movies show how superhero movie franchises became stale after a while, but for varying reasons other than them reaching the limits of their appeal.

"Spider-Man 3" seemed to be horrible by deliberate negligence on the part of its director, Sam Raimi, in what was perhaps an attempt to end what Sony Picture's wanted to be an even bigger franchise that would have spanned three more movies. 

Not only are Spider-man's challenges too numerous, but central characters such as Mary Jane and Harry Osborn are portrayed as erratic contrasts from the personalities established in the past movies and poorly utilized, respectively. Not to mention that Flint Marko/Sandman, a far-from-mainstream villain that Spider-man forgives and lets get away, was more central to the movie's redundant plot than was the ever popular Eddie Brock/Venom, who is killed off. READ RELATED POST!

"X-Men 3: The Last Stand" was the unfortunate result of the director of its first two predecessors, Bryan Singer, opting to instead helm "Superman Returns." 

Director Brett Ratner attempted to pick up the slack, but instead he kills off central characters such as Cyclops and Professor Charles Xavier, grounds the origin of The Dark Phoenix to a split personality of Gene Gray instead of as a result of a dramatic jump in evolution, forces Kitty Pride in-between Iceman and Rogue's romantic relationship, and introduces mostly bizarre new mutants in a misfired, solely action-packed sequel for characters that have more range than just being subjected to fighting one another to a bitter end.

"Superman Returns" was Singer's not-so-action-packed serenade to and retelling of the first movie in the franchise, the plot details of which were only slightly different. 

To sum it up quickly, Superman saves Lois from a plane, not a helicopter this time; again romantically flies with her through the air and he foils another real estate-related plot for riches concocted by Lex Luthor. 

Aside from that, the only original aspects of the movie are that Superman disappeared from Earth for five years to sift through the aftermath of Krypton's explosion for no reason and comes back without Supergirl, Lois married her editor's son during that time and gave birth to The Big Blue Boy Scout's asthmatic son. 

"Blade Trinity" changed the tone of its predecessors movies in that the central character went from kicking the collective asses of vampires, but not bothering to take their names on his own to him going after Dracula and his new age undead comrades with the help of a wise-cracking Scooby Doo-like gang of rookie slayers. 

Wesley Snipes' increasing frustration with portraying Blade was likely why the dark, brooding half-human-half-vampire allowed the mouthy Hannibal King and sexy Abigail Whistler to steal the show.

"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is not a bad movie, but it offers a redundant hero-thrown-into-royal-feud plot that allows new and established central characters to do what they do best, which is to fight monsters and keep butting heads with one another because of their individual idiosyncrasies. 

What director Guillermo del Torro seems to be subscribing to is the Indiana Jones formula of pitting his title character, Hellboy, against Nazis, then against a random foe, and then Nazis again.

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REVERIE: 'The Dark Knight' left several plot elements to further challenge Gotham City's watchful protector

With Heath Ledger unable to return as The Joker and the confirmed death of Aaron's Eckhart's Harvey Two-Face, the question remains which infamous foe can outwit The Batman in a sequel to "The Dark Knight." 

Instead of getting bogged down with a villain-of-the-week guessing game, fans should consider that director Christopher Nolan left behind ample plot elements for the dark hero (Christian Bale) to combat when he returns.

On the mean streets of Gotham, a power gap remains. The Joker can obviously not return, Two-Face died and the mob was weakened when it spent half of its combined financial resources to pay The Joker for the extermination of The Batman. 

Whoever challenges their criminal mantle must have a ruthless drive for power and money. That might nix the chances of Catwoman and The Riddler, who is shown as The Batman's next foe in a mock poster recently posted on the Web. They are not mobsters.

At his company, Bruce Wayne invested a lot of money developing a sonar-based radar system that was ultimately destroyed. Though he owns a majority of the stock in the publicly-traded company, Bruce might have to answer to the board of directors for a costly, secret project that seemingly delivered no substantial result. 

He might have to do so without the help of Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), who said he would not work for Wayne Enterprises as long as the system exists. But it was broken.

If anything, a sequel would have to address whether Fox remains the head of the company. READ RELATED POST

Both the mayor's office and the police department also have something for which to answer.

On their watch, The Joker killed several people, blew up a couple of high-profile buildings and undermined a major criminal case. 

In addition, the police were complicit in the abductions and murders of the city's two district attorneys and in the activities of a vigilante charged with five murders.

What might occur in a sequel is the election of a new mayor, as well as an internal investigation or replacement of Gary Oldman's James Gordon as the city's police commissioner. Whoever takes either job would likely go after The Batman as well.

How about a Julianne Moore-portrayed crusading Sarah Essen leading the charge?

Whatever challenges await The Dark Knight in a sequel should at least reflect the unavoidable consequences of his actions as a vigilante. 

As the character said himself in "Batman Begins," "It isn't who I am underneath but what I do that defines me."

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REVERIE: A seldom explored side of Bruce Wayne's psyche might carry 'The Dark Knight' sequel

Katie Holme's Rachel Dawes said that the true face of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is the one Gotham City's criminals fear, The Batman. 

This is why it was not out of place for Maggie Gyllenhaal's interpretation of the character to later say that the day might never come when he no longer needs to assume the only identity he has ever known.

She might be correct.

Her words say a lot about the psyche of Bruce Wayne, who spent his youth traveling the world in an attempt to understand and combat the injustice that robbed him of a life of blissful luxury. He is essentially a soldier away at war with nothing to come home to once the conflict is over.

That alone seemingly limits further exploration of a character that only makes sense when the tragedy that defines his life persists, and crime is something that will go on no matter what vigilante measures The Batman employs. Because it is a fact of life, it is also a likely fact of director Christopher Nolan's realistic Gotham City.

What remains ahead for what Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) dubbed the monster that Bruce Wayne created in "Batman Begins" are challenges from criminals of a lesser degree of danger and unpredictability than Heath Ledger's The Joker and Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face in that things already got worse and are bound to get better.

Nolan must be well aware of this as the director considers what to do for an encore and as fans promote names on the Web from The Batman's gallery of rogues that would merely serve as welcome distractions for a character that has no apparent reason to continue to exist other than to wrap things up. A selfishness of contemporary moviegoers to experience events that should be left to the imagination and that only serve to rob protagonists on the silver screen of their mystique.

As Nolan might already know, a suitable conclusion to the cinematic masterpiece he started telling in "Batman Begins" will not be found in DC Comics archives or from the clever reinterpretation of small time crooks such as The Riddler, The Penguin, or Catwoman.

The war on crime waged by The Batman can only end when he refuses to give up the power the people of Gotham gave the vigilante when they allowed mobsters and corrupt public officials to control the city. Remember that the monster in most stories tends to destroy himself.

Bruce Wayne's monster teeters on the edge of self-destruction, an early indication of which is his use of sonar-based technology to spy on the phone conversations of private citizens. 

How much farther The Batman will go to hold on to his identity as a watchful guardian now that he is more notably on the wrong side of the law remains to be seen in a sequel. 

As Harvey Dent said in "The Dark Knight," "You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

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REVERIE: Fate of Lucius Fox, Salvatore Maroni in 'The Dark Knight' remains unclear

Christian Bale's The Batman dived at Aaron' Eckhart's Harvey Two-Face, causing him to fall from a high floor of a burnt warehouse in "The Dark Knight."

Though official sources confirm that the crazed Gotham City district attorney is dead, hardcore fans of "The Dark Knight" might have noticed that the fate of Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox and Eric Robert's Salvatore Maroni was left unclear.

Whether Fox will return to run Wayne Enterprises and supply The Batman with the latest high-tech gadgets with crime fighting applications in a sequel depends.

In the movie, he resigned from the company in protest of the existence and proposed use of a sonar-based machine that would utilize Gotham citizen's cell phones to monitor and image the entire city.

Fox later agrees to use the machine to help The Batman find The Joker. "(But) as long as this machine is at Wayne Industries, I won't be," says Fox, whose ultimatum calls his job into question when it is destroyed.

Equally uncertain is whether Maroni died when Harvey Two-Face shot the mobster's driver, causing the limousine in which they were riding to flip over on its head. His fate is further questionable in that the ill-fated district attorney who caused the wreck thereafter survived, though he alone wore a seat belt. Maroni might have died or sustained injuries.

What is certain is that "Dent presses the barrel of the revolver behind the shadow of the driver. Maroni LUNGES, SCREAMING. Dent FIRES," the official movie script shows. "The Limo SWERVES off to the bridge, SOARS out over the canal, and PANCAKES into the RETAINING WALL."

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REACTION REVERIE: 'The Dark Knight' script indicates The Batman may have caused Harvey Two-Face's confirmed death

Aaron Eckhart and the official script for "The Dark Knight" confirm that his Harvey Two-Face character is "DEAD" and thus will not return to terrorize Gotham City in a likely sequel.

What remains unclear, and that is not confirmed or debunked by the official script, is whether The Batman (Christian Bale) caused the ill-starred district attorney to fall to his death from the high floor of a burnt warehouse.

Official confirmation of The Batman's complicity in the death would indicate a stark contrast to the character's one rule in the movie and in the comics that he does not resort to killing criminals.

In the movie's finale, Eckhart's Harvey Two-Face flips a coin to determine whether the son of Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon will die. When he flips the coin, "Batman hurls himself at Dent and the boy," causing them to fall over the edge of the warehouse, the official script shows.

Whether this constitutes murder and jeopardizes the already delicate moral reputation of The Batman among fans remains in question.

Without question, "Dent lies at the bottom ... his neck broken ... DEAD" as a result of the fall, the official script shows. If that was not enough to establish the death of the character, the script further confirms a sequence in the movie in which "GORDON STANDS AT A PODIUM AT DENT'S FUNERAL."

Eckhart recently validated the script's details, telling ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! that director Christopher Nolans considers his character dead as well.

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REVIEW RELOAD: Heath Ledger's creepy Joker wreaks sensational havoc in 'The Dark Knight'

One of Heath Ledger's final cinematic performances proves not only to be the definitive interpretation of the The Joker, but an improvement on The Batman's archenemy in the comic book movie adaptation, "The Dark Knight."

Ledger's take on the character applies his theory that the only sensible way to live in this world is to introduce chaos to the established order, allowing his opponents and competitors to destroy one another as they fight for control of Gotham City in this intricate and terrifying crime thriller that would be a tragedy if not for a few small victories by the protagonists.

Gotham citizens are divided about The Batman (Christian Bale) taking law enforcement into his own hands. Copycats support him, even try to help out, but everyone else wants him arrested. 

Though he is a vigilante, The Batman's ability to operate outside of the law is employed by Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the city's new district attorney, who asks him to bring a businessman who fled the country in to the custody of the Gotham City police.

The businessman, Lau (Chin Han), keeps the money of the city's mobsters in his own bank account in Hong Kong and outside of U.S. jurisdiction. 

Harvey's plan to take down the mob is to threaten Lau with charges for laundering their money, which would cause him to hand it all over. 

His theory is based on the assumption that Lau will not want his business compromised by the appearance of impropriety.

Batman's forces extradition of Lau convinces Gotham's mobsters that he is a substantial threat to their criminal empires that will supersede the law to bring them to justice. 

They accept an offer made by The Joker to kill the vigilante in exchange for half their money. 

Jonathan Nolan, who wrote the screenplay, improved on this aspect of the story of the comic book on which "The Dark Knight" is based. 

In "Batman: The Long Halloween," which was published by DC Comics in the late '90s, The Batman, Harvey and Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) combat the mob by locating their money in a dock warehouse and burning it to ashes, but this aspect of the story compromised Dent's moral scruples. Their strategy in the movie allows The Batman to take all the moral risk and Harvey to remain the virtuous white knight that the citizens of Gotham, including Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), believe in as a symbol of hope who can lock up the criminals that plague the city. 

Rachel not only believes in Harvey, she is romantically involved with the new district attorney. 

Though their relationship makes Bruce Wayne jealous, he comes to hopes that Harvey will one day make Gotham a city that does not need The Batman so he can be with Rachel.

Everything is thrown into disarray when The Joker shows up on TV, kills someone and says he will dispose of another person every day until The Batman turns himself into the authorities, utilizing the public's distrust of the vigilante to flush him out. The Joker is never shown killing his victim on TV, but the likely horror of the murder comes off convincingly with the unsettling sound of sadistic laughter after the broadcast goes black. 

Every moment throughout the course of trying to stop him is a surprising rush that results in The Joker coming out one step ahead of the best efforts of his opponents. True to the comics, he kills someone very close to the man underneath the mask of The Batman.

Somewhere amid all the delightful chaos is Bruce's struggle to define how far he can go as a crime fighter to stop this seemingly inexorable foe without killing him. He employs some impressive gadgets toward this end, one of which was not noticeably present in "Batman Begins," but it is there. 

His dealings with The Joker show Bruce that though The Batman fights for justice, he must be a renegade that surpasses certain moral and legal limitations to serve the greater good.

And a letter from Rachel alludes to an interesting aspect of Bruce's connection to The Batman that may be explored in more detail in a likely sequel. 

Bale does his usual best to represent this personal struggle in a two-hour-and-30-minute movie in which he is mostly underneath a mask.

Gyllenhall did the best she could with a limited role meant to illustrate how the almost repressed personality that is Bruce Wayne has feelings that conflict with his decision to dedicate his life to combating crime as The Batman. 

Ledger's Joker is the hallmark of "The Dark Knight," particularly in a scene in the Gotham City Police Department in which The Batman roughs him up for information. 

The Joker endures the physical abuse, but will not give in because, as he explains, he is an uncompromising menace with no personal ambition other than helping people abandon their personal ethics. His belief is that people are only as good as the arbitrary nature of the world allows them to be.

 

Suffice it to say that for this reason he also believes in Harvey.

Unlike in the comics, Ledger's Joker not only maintains he is not crazy, he comes off as though he is more enlightened than people because of a lack of moral constraints. 

He explains in one scene how he knows his victims better than close friends because of how they choose to struggle for their lives moments before their deaths.

"Would you like to know which of them were cowards?" he says to antagonize a policeman. 

How Ledger's Joker stands out from past interpretations is that he is not a completely over-the-top villain spouting out clown cliches and killing hoards of random people.

When this The Joker is about to kill someone, he is hysterically giddy, but he is nonchalant when everyone around him go nuts as a result of disastrous events that he sets into motion. Not a minute goes by when his actions or their aftermath let moviegoers sit easy.

Though this Joker denies planning things out, none of his murders are pointless. His victims are either a means to an end or in his way. In either event, he has no remorse in surgically implanting a bomb into the stomach of a deranged man or using the head of a mob henchman to make a pencil disappear in a sadistically amusing way. 

Like in the comics, The Joker provides conflicting, probably false accounts about his past, particularly about his father, wife and how he attained the scars that form the macabre smile on his face. These stories serve as a convenient segue from when he spots his victims to the unsettling moments before he uses his knife to cut into their bodies.

As for Harvey, Eckhart portrays the character as an all-American no-nonsense maverick who is willing to do whatever he has to within the limits of the law, including disarming and knocking out an assailant in court, to serve justice. 

He is the college jock everyone likes because he is willing to expose himself to physical harm from his opponents, which in this case are criminals and corrupt cops he imprisons, in the course of getting the job done.

Harvey's strong desire for justice is what ultimately drives him over the edge after a lot of personal misfortune, including the mutilation of his face.

What detracts from this great movie is a prolonged conversation between The Batman and Gordon during the last few minutes, which was likely included to make sense of all the tragic events that happened, but it lingers on so long that it only serves as a lackluster ending.

Popcorn rating:

(5 out of 5 pieces)

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FEATURE: Fanboy's Web site helps save Gotham City from the Hollywood machine

A 31-year-old Houston man left a movie theater more than 10 years ago disillusioned. The movie had not yet finished, but the injustice he witnessed was too much to bear. Batman and Robin were wearing rubber nipples.

Bill Ramey looked at the silver screen as Batman used politically correct terms, carried a credit card in his utility belt and, if that was not enough, he was smiling.

It was summer 1997. Director Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" was in movie theaters.

"The whole thing just seemed off," Ramey would later post on the Web.

Much like another dispirited, albeit fictional man, Ramey set out to ensure that what happened to him would never again befall moviegoing comic book enthusiasts. 

He started a Web site, a dramatic example that would shake Batman moviemakers and fanboys alike out of apathy and into action.

Ramey, who last week saw a press screening of "The Dark Knight," the highly anticipated sequel to "Batman Begins," recalls how his creation, Batman on Film, and similar fan-created Web sites, provided a target audience a forum with which to demand a definitive Batman origin movie.

It allowed fanboys to tell Warner Bros. Pictures everything from who should be cast in the title role to the fabric from which the 

costume should be made.

Christian Bale and Kevlar, a synthetic fiber used in protective helmets and vests, were often demanded. Warner Bros. Pictures obliged to the former, but decided to go with black foam and latex for the latter.

"I think they were paying attention to what the fans thought, who they were suggesting for certain roles ... and maybe if there was any interest in a new Batman film," Ramey said.

"Batman Begins" screenwriter David S. Goyer, Special FX Supervisor Chris Corbould and Executive Producer Michael Ulsan said that they often visited the Web site during the production of the movie, the Batman on Film Home Page shows. Mark S. Reinhart, author of the Batman Filmography, said Batman on Film "had such a positive impact on Warner Bros. in terms of the direction they are now taking their Batman film series," the Home Page shows as well.

But Batman on Film was not just a bully pulpit with which to strike fear into the hearts of filmmakers who might misrepresent a nearly 70-year-old comic book legacy. Ramey and like-minded, albeit anonymous, agents of the bat with access to Warner Bros. Pictures' movers and shakers provided his Web audience with the latest news about the movie franchise, from its years in development hell to its resurgence in 2005.

"I don't reveal 'spoilers.' I don't think that's my job. My job is to say, "Hey WB, we want Batman films and we want good ones,'" said Ramey, though not everyone on the Web seems to subscribe to such a code of ethics. 

"The one thing that comes to mind is the leak of the movie's script online. For a time, I thought it would deter from the film," said Ramey, who is known to his Web audience as "Jett." Ramey said he read the script himself out of curiosity, but it almost spoiled the movie for him. This is why he chose to "stay in the dark" for the sequel in terms of looking at leaked scripts.

Rumors were posted on the Web site as well, especially in regard to who would be cast as the Joker in this summer's "The Dark Knight." Jude Law, Paul Bettany and Lacy Hulme were at one time considered to be top contenders to portray Mr. J. Ultimately, the late Heath Ledger landed the role, even though his name was never mentioned during the online scuttlebutt.

Fans of the Batman were conflicted. The movie franchise was something sacrosanct of which they were losing control, like the Dark Knight's affinity for a city he sets out to take back from criminals and corrupt public officials.

"Batman '89 basically started the whole 'superhero movie' genre. It affected everything that has come since. That's the positive. On the other hand, the other three Batman films showed everyone how not to do a comic book-based film. 'Batman & Robin' almost killed the genre," said Ramey, who in 2004 was invited to visit the U.K. set of "Batman Begins," Director Christopher Nolan's attempt to reboot the movie franchise. 

Twenty-three-year-old independent director Aaron Schoenke said he was inspired to become a filmmaker by the first two movies in the series, "Batman" and "Batman Returns," directed by Tim Burton. 

"The first and second Batman films opened my eyes to filmmaking and all the extraordinary possibilities that the film medium had to offer creatively," said Schoenke, who founded the Calabasas-based Bat in the Sun Productions to direct character-driven interpretations of The Batman and his gallery of rogues.

Schoenke's films, such a "Patient J," which portrays the manic romance and exploits of the Joker and his moll, have a loyal Web fan base. Though Schoenke said he does not strictly adhere to comic book source material in his fan films, " I think many fans get lost here ... they tend to solely focus on accuracy and not the creative filmmaking side."

"Don't get me wrong, accuracy is very important, but it's not the sole reason a film is good or bad," Schoenke said.

Edward T. Halloran, film literature professor at Cal State Northridge, said Batman became the victim of the synergistic industrial model of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when companies such as the Kinney National Company, the owners of which knew nothing about filmmaking, purchases insolvent companies such as Warner Brothers-Seven Arts.

Once the Ronald Reagan administration relaxed FCC regulations in the 1980s, they vertically integrated their assets, Halloran said. "This way when a Batman movie comes out, so will a comic book adaptation from DC Comics and a soundtrack from Warner Records, both of which are subsidiaries of one corporation," Halloran said. ""That's synergy, taking a product and exploiting it."

How fanboys saved Gotham City from the Hollywood machine involved reminding filmmakers about its psychological and visual history, which was defined by different interpretations of its heroes and rogues in comic books, television and movies. More elements from Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams comic books from the 1960s, yes, but not so much from the Adam West TV show, with Frank Miller-esque action from his graphic novels and a dash of heart from "Batman: The Animated Series."

Ramey not only documents this history on his Web site, he provides the analysis to keep its creators honest. Four years later, Ramey said he talked to Nolan and "The Dark Knight" producer Emma Thomas at last week's press screening about how the movie, which he describes as an "intense, urban crime drama that happens to have characters in crazy costumes," is "badass."

"The Dark Knight," which will be released in movie theaters July 18, will answer what happens when Heath Ledger's interpretation of the Joker escalates crime in Gotham City. As to what will happen when Web savvy people create commercial Web sites using Ramey's fan site model, the fight for online audiences seems to be more civil.

Jim Littler, a former toy marketer who created the Web site Comicbookmovie when Hollywood started producing several superhero movies in 2000, said, "I have great relationships with lots of fan sites. They send me in lots of the news I post."

"I'd say 75 percent is reliable and the rest is rumor from the set, but we do our best to ferret out falsehoods by checking sources, even though we'll still publish 'rumor' if it comes from someone whose proven reliable in the past," said Littler, who calls himself a lifelong "comics geek" and fan of movies.

Ramey, who continues to provide like-minded comic book geeks and movie lovers news tidbits, reviews, history and analysis, never though a fanboy with a computer could help save a movie franchise, let alone The Batman. "I just hoped that a good Batman film would finally get made," Ramey said.

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PREVIEW REWIND: Wait'll fanboys get a load of 'The Dark Knight'

Six minutes of a highly anticipated summer blockbuster played before IMAX screenings of 2007's "I am Legend" showing thugs in clown masks robbing a mob-owned bank.

"Criminals in this city used to believe in things. What do you believe in, huh? What do you believe?" the wounded bank's manager yells as he lies on the floor. The only robber to survive the heist reveals to the manager the mutilated clown-like grimace underneath the mask and says, "I believe that whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger."

This is how moviegoers will meet the late Heath Ledger's interpretation of The Joker on July 18 when "The Dark Knight" premieres in movie theaters. The Batman will not chase the criminal through a manufacturing plant, causing him to fall into a vat of toxic chemicals. Tim Burton told that story in 1989.

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