That one’s easy.
The Strangers are aliens that live inside the heads of corpses, controlling the corpses like zombies. The sun would dry the bodies out faster.
Whoa.
Dark City was the first DVD I ever saw. Because it was a friend’s first DVD and he lent it to a co-worker, who bought his own (his first DVD) and lent it to me… And I’m planning on buying it. As my first DVD.
[keanu] Whoa. [/keanu]
ps: watched it on a night flight (on my then-new powerbook - first-computer-ever ), and the commentary was great. I whispered to no one “It’s like film school in a box.”
What shot? You mean at the very end, when you see the City collapsing? You can see space beyond it, and no recognizable planets. That’s why I thought it was on a far away planet. Am I wrong? 
Silentgoldfish, thanks for the explanation. Now the Strangers are even freakier!
I know that Hollywood is really more of a metaphor than an actual location, but i thought i would point out for those who didn’t know that both films were made in Sydney.
In The Matrix, it is very easy to tell which city it is if you look closely enough. It’s much harder in Dark City.
Watch the movie again!
Ok, ok.
There’s that great shot (how on earth did you miss it?) where the camera zooms out and you see that the whole city is a sort of giant space-ship.
The scene Silentgoldfish revealed is the one I was talking about. It occurs at the following place in the film:
When John and Detective Bumstead kidnap Dr. Schreber and force him to take them to Shell Beach. Instead they find only a poster on a brick wall. They break through and are met with open space. Schreber says, “Beyond the City, there is nothing.” The Strangers then appear and they get into a scuffle. Bumstead and one of them (Mr. Rain, maybe?) fall out the hole and float away. They penetrate the force field keeping the atmosphere in the city, and continue out into the void. At this point, we see a very grand shot of the entire city, floating in space.
There’s a link within that spoiler box that takes you to a picture, but not a picture of what I wanted. I guess they don’t put that on the web because they don’t want to spoil it.
One other unrelated, subtle thing that I kind of liked is that Dr. Schreber fixes his speech impediment in the memories he fabricates.
Dark City is one of my favourite films, and one of only two that I’ve bought on DVD that I already have on tape (the other being Blade Runner). But I just have to say, whoever was responsible for the Region 2 release is a complete and utter [expletive deleted] and really needs to have a big, big very big umbrella shoved up his [expletive deleted] and opened. Instead of the shedloads of special feature goodness on the Region 1 DVD, we european types get: ‘The Making of’ Featurette (about as ette as a feature gets, clocking in at a whole 5 minutes) and a trailer. :rolleyes:
As for the Strangers’ experiments:
ISTR that they were searching for the seat of the human soul, as they felt that there own lack of souls was responsible for the decline of their species. The experiment with Murdoch was designed to see if giving a human the memories of murderer could also give him the soul of a murderer.
You’re dead on about the experiments, Jarod Ilcast. I don’t think you need to worry too much about spoiling that particular plot point, though, since it’s explained in Dr. Schreber’s opening monologue. 
My take on John’s experiment is in the OP - it’s clear what the filmmaker thinks about the experiment, but it’s not as clear that that’s actually the case (even if the movie world).
Sorry to hear about the Region 2 DVD blandness. I’m trying to figure out this “game” on my DVD, but I can’t get past the first screen.
It really does suck. Ebert is by far my favourite critic and I’d really like to hear what his commentary is like.
On the other hand I’ve finally managed to de-region lock my dvd player so if a US doper wants to be really really nice… ;j
The movie has two major, major faults, IMHO:
- The beginning introduction just about spoiled the movie for me. I advised my friends to go see the movie, but to block their ears and hum quietly until they saw a swinging lightbulb. It was truly an atrocious choice to explain the movie’s central mystery before it began.
- The Mortal Kombat fight sequence at the end was cheesy and really ruined my suspense.
Otherwise, I thought the movie was brilliant.
Daniel
Achernar The opening monolgue you say?
:smack:
Oh well, it’s been a while since I last watched it.
My current DVD player, after extensive searching of the web, appears to be the only one on planet earth that can’t be region unlocked. One of these days I’ll have enough cash to spring for a multiregion player, and then I’ll have to get another copy.
Or just buy samsung
I watched this again recently, and one thing I thought of for the first time was the cars - notice that they are all memorable classic carss from various time periods - I wonder if Proyas did that intentionally, to imply that since the cars were replicated from the memories of the captured humans, they are all fondly remembered classics. Or did I smoke too much?
I have to agree with raisinbread here. I thought the movie was little more than an homage to the German industrial film era with a high degree of boring ploting, ham-fisted writing and general, “Ooooo, look at the dark setting and feel our oppression” kind of self-indulgent ambiance found in a lot of junior year film projects.
I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I watched it on two different occasions hoping that the first time I wasn’t in the right mood to like it.
I didn’t like it.
I have a question. Many posters have referred to this movie as “film noir”. I thought this refers to plot structure more than style, or does noir = 1940 period movies?
I’m interested in a good definition of film noir as well. Usually it’s put in terms of movies I haven’t seen. But maybe someone can use this film as a reference point.
I just remembered that there’s someone on this message board I’ve seen with their Location field reading “Shell Beach”. And they haven’t posted to this thread! We need to get them here.
Film noir was a term used by the french to label a collection of films made in the U.S. during the second world war (though they continued to be made until the late 50’s). They are characterised by dark mood and flawed heroes, usually highlighted by cinematography that attempts to play on that mood - dark smoky claustrophobic framing, strong angled shadows that disect the mise-en-scene, etc. There is plenty of info available on this, and a film like “Dark City” is an example of the post modern resurgence in popularity of the genre.
Also: I read that “Dark City” is the fastest edited film ever made - there is a cut something like every 1.3 seconds on average in that film, which is always going to screw with the mood.