The Dark Knight Film Influences (SPOILERS)

[Timothy]

Split from: The+Dark+Knight+Comic+Book+Influences+%28SPOILER

Two things occurred to me after seeing The Dark Knight today; there's a reference to Batman Forever in the form of Two-Face's last coin toss coming up head first, and that one of the posters is (possibly) in reference to a source of inspiration for The Dark Knight... Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

The Dark Knight posters
eliburford.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dark-knight-posters.jpg

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange
www.impawards.com/1971/posters/clockwork_orange.jpg

Even the Joker's pose is reminiscent of Alex's from the aforementioned poster!

[Jack Napier]

Yeah, I remember when Ledger first cited A Clockwork Orange in an early interview. I put it on my Must See list since I hadn't seen it before.

I know Nolan has cited Michael Mann's Heat as an influence. That film also features a bank robbery with masked men in suits carrying duffel bags (and not killing any of the innocent bystanders). Plus, Robert De Niro and then-current Batman Val Kilmer robbed from William Fitchner in the beginning of that film and Fitchner, 13 years later, got to be robbed by Heath Ledger in the beginning of The Dark Knight, haha.

There's some James Bond influence as well since I know that Nolan is a Bond fan. Apart from the obvious comparison of Lucius Fox to Q, there's Joker having a knife blade in his shoe, which was the trademark weapon of Rosa Klebb at the end of From Russia With Love.
The most apparent, though, is probably Skyhook,which Batman used to get on the plane after nabbing Lau. I heard it actually exists, but I find it as a likely reference to the end of Thunderball, since the CIA help get Bond and Domino out using a Skyhook-type of operation (and Thunderball was made in the 1960s, the time period that Fox says that the CIA came up with Skyhook).

[Timothy]

Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back came to mind when Joker's semi-truck was tripped (and subsequently flipped) over with cables, ala the AT-AT walkers in the Battle of Hoth.

Could the "Batman fights in a nightclub" scene be a reference to the "Batman/Superman Movie" from Superman: The Animated Series?