The Dark Knight Rises; viral marketing? No.

The Dark Knight had some of the best viral marketing that I can remember, and it looks like The Dark Knight Rises won't disappoint in its viral marketing as well. We all know about The Fire Rises. The mysterious sound-clip that led Twitter users to a mosaic of the first picture of Bane. As far as official viral marketing goes, that's it so far.

Three videos have appeared on YouTube, conveniently uploaded by a user with the handle, TheFireRises. They show a fire, an apparent Arkham Asylum outbreak, and a GCN newscast. The same, ominous chanting is present in the videos (which, some people might say, could simply be evidence of it being a real part of the viral marketing -- to which I call bullshit), but that's where the "official-ness" ends.
Hell, I don't even think that the chanting makes it "official." The sound file of the chanting can be easily downloaded here. 

There's a sound-byte in the videos that's taken directly from the Why So Serious campaign (proof!), and the GCN newscasts themselves look like the newscasts that were included in disc two of The Dark Knight's Blu-Ray. That grainy, Cloverfield-ish, choppy quality in the "viral marketing" videos? You'd think that it's there to make it feel more ominous, but no. Look at Mike Engel's lips. They don't match the words "he's" saying. They, DO, however, appear to match what he says in the Gotham Tonight special feature on The Dark Knight Blu-Ray. I'm trying to prove it via YouTube, but all the videos from Gotham Cable Network have been pulled because of copyright infringements.

Logic bomb!