Heath Ledger's look as the Joker in the next Batman movie

Well, the fanboys on the internet are abuzz with not only the new look of the Joker in the next Batman movie The Dark Knight, but also with how it was revealed.

It was possibly the most involving and creepiest viral campaign ever. I got involved, and here's the story of what you had to do to access the Joker's image.

It started with this site.

http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/

I found this interesting, but if you click on it then it takes you to this Warner Brothers site:

http://ibelieveinharveydent.warnerbros.com/

In case you don't know, Harvey Dent is the DA in the Batman comics. So that was pretty cool.

Then I found another website which was not registered by Warner Brothers at all. It seemed to be the same website as the above one, except it was made to look as though someone had smeared black paint around Harvey Dent's eyes and then red paint along his mouth and scrawled "TOO" at the end of his slogan.

There were two fields at the bottom that I could sign up with, like it was a campaign. I then got this email from [email protected]:

I always say, you never know what a man is truly made of until you peel the skin off his face one piece at a time.

Interesting.

It was also paired with some information - they were map coordinates, X and Y for the campaign site. I went back and tried to figure out what it meant - as it turned out, there was a pixel at the corresponding coordinates, and once I clicked it it changed colors. I then got another email from the same address -

People always ask me about my charming boyish smile. Jessica used to love it. She was the loneliest girl in high school, and my first big kiss...

This was officially creepy as hell.

There were more pixels to click on. They all changed colors. More and more people signed on and started doing it with me once the word got around, and we slowly realized there was something behind the campaign picture, an image.

It was a picture of a face, and it was slowly being revealed.

This is what it showed me - be warned, it's very disturbing:

http://i17.tinypic.com/4u1ivb8 .jpg

The original site is "taken down" or at least appears that way - check it out and then, just to make sure, highlight something. Anything.

ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com

So I guess this new Joker is going to be utterly terrifying.

Well, I understand that Harvey, Gordon, and Batman all team up to bring down the rest of the mob element, as Harvey has the connections to put Sal "The Boss" Maronia (Eric Roberts from Heroes) behind bars. But apparently The Joker has the same idea, and starts taking on both sides at once.

I've read a few very slight excerpts of the script, and from what I understand The Joker is on Batman's level as far as mystery goes - all of his men revere him as a God of some kind, many speculate that he is not human, and the real kicker is that most of them don't even know where he is and have only met him once. I also understand that while he looks like The Joker throughout the whole movie - white skin, green hair - Batman may inadvertently cause the extreme scarring around the mouth, which results in, well, one of the most famous comic rivalries of all time.

Ledger said that some of his performance is inspired by Alex and his Droogs from A Clockwork Orange. So, yeah, that combined with this Buffalo Bill/John Wayne Gacy photo, I am really pumped for this.

Yeah, he's going to be a total dreamboat in this one.

...wait.

To be frank, it was a pretty gutsy move on his part to go from homosexual cowboy to murderous clown-monster.

KCpotatohead said:

words

Click to expand...

Well, so far it works like this:

There were four Batman movies, all of which were either so-so or terrible, and they started off as a pretty cool gothfest that generated into a campy orgy of neon light and nipples.

That was bad, and everyone considered the franchise to be dead.

Then they went to Christopher Nolan, an up and coming director known for making psychological, gritty movies, and said, you know what? Batman's always been pretty realistic. Why don't we just junk all of the old ones and start all over again with something darker and oriented towards morality?

So they did that. Batman Begins is totally new and different, as is The Dark Knight. Batman Begins assumed that none of the other Batman movies existed, and was pretty much a reboot of the entire thing. Like when your computer's doing something you don't like, and you just turn if off and start all over again.

Christian Bale is the new Batman. He's also famous for playing dark, psychological roles and isn't really a "blockbuster" actor per se, which is another way these movies are different.

If that doesn't sway you, it's also got Michael Caine, Rutger Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, and Tom Wilkinson.