SilverWook said:

I sincerely hope no one here was in the middle of the terrible thing that has happened overnight in Colorado.

Movies have always been a "safe harbor" to me. Some of my happiest memories are from being in a movie theater. For someone to do something like this sickens me and makes me angry.

My first thought, and really my only thought on it currently, is that I truly hope it had nothing to do with the film itself. In The Dark Knight, the Joker was presented (in viral ads, as well as in the film itself) as a character to look up to. Someone who isn't bound by the rules and pressures of modern society. Someone who is beyond the commoners.

The film, and in particular the year-long advertising juggernaut, nearly glorified that sort of calm, almost joyful disregard for human life. Thousands of people embraced the character as an awesome achievement, not just from an acting standpoint, but from a sort of "an answer for our times" viewpoint. People couldn't wait to "be him".

That fucking endless cultural loop of "some people just want to watch the world burn" was grating, to say the least. I worry that someone acted on it last night. The mask, the smoke bombs, the calm ending of human life - sure seems like more than a coincidence.