The Dark Knight Returns

I went with Frau and the Marmoset to see "The Dark Knight" over the weekend. Wow, was that a good movie. I can't believe how much stuff they effectively packed in; it felt like I just saw Batman Part II, III, and at least part of IV all in one sitting.

A few brief observations(with spoilers kept to a minimum):

• Heath Ledger is officially the best Joker there ever was or ever will be.
  
• Comic geek note: Kudos to the writers for lots and lots of reasons, but especially for resisting the obvious temptation of just making a rip-off of the most famous and (until now) disturbing Joker story: Alan Moore's The Killing Joke.
  
• Making a worthy sequel to this, especially in light of Batman's status at the end, will be a HUGE challenge.
  

The amount of Batman stuff they packed into this movie, actually gives me some scrap of hope for the Watchmen movie, due out next March. The very cool new trailer for Watchmen also leads me to be a little more optimistic. But making a 2-minute trailer full of badass special effects is one thing, squeezing the entire book into a single movie without mangling it beyond recognition is something else entirely. And Alan Moore-based movies don't have the greatest of track records (hence my relief at point #2 above). But we'll see what happens.