After more than four months of hype, it's getting to feel like there's increasingly less to discover about The Dark Knight except whether or not it's good. Variety pretty much took care of that on Sunday, overriding David Letterman's early, spoilerrific review with a bit more textural rave. That was preceded in the LA Times by more Heath Ledger superlatives and requisite bleakness reinforcement from director Chris Nolan. But Anne Thompson has an even better showing at her blog, featuring expansive Nolan quotes from a recent screening/discussion and, far more impressively, a look at Michael Bay's little-known original stab at the Dark Knight screenplay:

EXT. A HIGHWAY — DAY ...

The Batmobile races off into the distance. Finally, BATMAN catches up to the JOKER's zeppelin.

JOKER
Howdy, Batman. Got time for a little... prank?

JOKER unleashes an all-out barrage of missiles, like the biggest fucking missiles you will ever see. BATMAN shoots his own back, and they all collide into each other in the middle of the highway releasing a violent explosion, and then, an explosion within that explosion, this time in slow motion, with tanks flying out of it.

Both BATMAN and JOKER eject from their vehicles, shooting themselves into helcopters. they they unleash even bigger missiles, which whizz past both of the helicopters, destroying the highway on the ground below. The action's not over yet, though, because in the distance there are still five more highways and, on top of them, a bridge.

And you know what? While we can't vouch for how Ledger's penultimate performance might have fared in the Bay biosphere (regardless of this joke script's authenticity), at this point we can't deny we'd mind living in the parallel universe where this script would not only be written, but this movie would be made.

• Christopher Nolan's 'Knight' vision [LAT]
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• 'The Dark Knight' [Variety]
• Michael Bay's Rejected 'The Dark Knight' Script [Spill via TOH]

Tags: batman | christian bale | christopher nolan | heath ledger | hype city | michael bay | the dark knight