I think up to this point, it's been difficult to suggest a world where Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and others could exist in the same universe. That was one of the things I really wanted to try and get at. Not to mention, the amazing opportunity to bring those characters and have those characters tell an important story, their own story, within the confines of a film.

In the sense that Watchmen references movies, comic books, pop culture in general. It knows it's a movie. I really do like movies that ride that fine line, the razor's edge between parody and supporting the fake movie part of the movie.

You know, it's a hugely difficult thing to take any work of art or drawing and say 'make that real.'

There was this interesting quote: try and live your life without fear and desire. It's this concept that's like when you look at a painting in a museum and you are held in aesthetic arrest. So the I, the ego, is stripped, is gone. The observer and thing become one. That's where fear and desire come in because you don't want to own it, possess it, desire it, and it's not moving you to fear. It's like you're in this harmonious state with the object.

The thing about 'Dark Knight' is its objective is to set Batman into your world, so that you can imagine the moral dilemmas he faces are exactly parallel to moral dilemmas that you would face in this world, today, if you were out there fighting crime dressed like a bat.

It's interesting now that basically a CG set is the same cost as a real set. So like if you're going to build a CG house in the suburbs, it costs you $200,000. And if you were going to build it in a computer, it'll cost you $200,000. It's the same... the relationship is exactly the same.

We've tried as hard as we can into keep the ideas intact in the hail storm that is Hollywood, so, whether he is or not, I'm personally proud of what I've been able to jam down their throats.