The Dark Knight The 6 Most Pointlessly Elaborate Movie Murder Plots

[TMC1982]

http://www.cracked.com/article_16848_p2.html

Spoiler

#1.
The Joker's Bomb Conundrum in The Dark Knight

We would expect a ridiculously long and drawn-out murder plot from a villain like the Joker, a man by whom all clearly deranged and psychopathic murderers are measured. But this one had to have taken the assistance of a room full of supercomputers, and several psychics.

We're guessing the planning went something like this:
"First, we find two empty buildings. Without the cops noticing, we'll secretly sneak in hundreds of drums of explosive liquids, and wire all of them to explode. Next, we'll orchestrate an attack on the convoy transporting Harvey Dent. This will involve blocking busy streets, blowing police helicopters out of the air and launching missiles at the armored car. All of this will be done, not to kill Dent (though that could happen at any moment) but to cause Batman to intervene so that he will throw me in jail.

"So far so good..."​

Then, while the whole town is on alert, we go ahead and have our henchmen kidnap both Dent and Rachel Dawes and strap them in with the bombs in the two abandoned buildings. Then I'll send Batman after one of them, knowing that this will result in Rachel being killed and Dent being a certain distance from the explosion as to become grotesquely injured and disillusioned. Then I'll blow up the jail without accidentally killing myself. Gentlemen, it couldn't be simpler."
The Problem:
Really nothing, as long as absolutely every single event happens exactly as it did in the film, down to the millimeter and microsecond.

If the rocket blows up Dent's armored car instead of hitting the Batmobile, if the Batmobile doesn't happen to have a motorcycle hidden inside it, if somebody clears the makeshift roadblock out of the way before the convoy gets there, if traffic allows the cops to get to Rachel before Batman gets to Dent, if a cop happens to be stations out in front of Rachel's building when the cops get the coordinates, if a hunk of debris from the building hits Dent and kills him as he's escaping the explosion...
You get the idea.
A Better Way:
The Joker makes a bullet disappear by shooting Rachel in the face.

 

[byte19]

stupid. stu-pid.

 

[[A]]

Eh.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

Actually I sort of agree with this. One of my only criticisms about The Dark Knight was that Joker's plan, while expected to be fairly clever, did rely on far too many contrivances and oh-so-perfect timing. Still a brilliant movie? Yes, but you do start to notice that a lot of the things the Joker plans actually hinges on the most unfeasible things at time. (eg. planning to be able to escape from jail despite not knowing conditions, knowing somehow that Batman will just get to Dent in time while the police won't get to Rachel etc).

Not a huge complaint, but while it comes off as know-it-all, the article does have a point. I may get bashed for saying this though.

 

[[A]]

Ahh enough with this pre-ordeal approach: I know I'll be bashed.. but I must continue with my <whatever>

 

[Boom]

Truth be told, the only part of The Joker's plan that I ever caught myself thinking twice about was the ferry incident.

Is the city really stupid enough to not check the ferries for explosives?

 

[Why So Serious?]

At least whoever wrote that article had the balls to speak his mind as to how completely ridiculous parts of The Dark Knight really were.

Good film, yes. But parts of it are way to contrived for it's own good. The whole bomb conundrum being the prime example.

-WsS?

 

[Paradyme]

Underpants Gnome:

Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ...
Phase 3: Profit

 

[HitMe]

I think a lot of people don't understand the Joker, including the author of this article. They think he wasn't trying to kill Dent during the chase but, put simply, he was. If he had, he would have had two other people put into the buildings, or not bothered with the whole buildings game at all and moved on to something new. What happened was just the way things panned out. I don't think he wanted to be caught either, I think the bomb in the jail was in just case he did.
And this part:

"knowing that this will result in Rachel being killed and Dent being a certain distance from the explosion as to become grotesquely injured and disillusioned."

really shows that they don't know what they're talking about. The people who say that he planned to have Dent disfigured so he could corrupt him; he didn't. He just took advantage of the situation and worked his magic. The Joker plans for any occurrence, but doesn't care which of these comes true, as long as he's still alive afterwards or he can break gotham by having a ray of hope like batman or dent kill him.

That's my opinion.

 

[Ekricket]

Truth be told, the only part of The Joker's plan that I ever caught myself thinking twice about was the ferry incident.

Is the city really stupid enough to not check the ferries for explosives?

I agree - I mean they jammed packed the ferries with as many people as they could hold, but did not notice the barrels and barrels of fuel and explosives one deck below them? Would they not have tried to utilize that space for people?

The rest I think of as contingency planning. If he killed Dent, then he moved on. If not, he took advantage of what happened. If he killed Batman, well I am sure he would have been ok with that too.

Getting out of jail? Well, if I knew there was a possibility of going to jail I would take precautions - maybe there were others besides the bomb in the body, but that was the one he chose to use based on the circumstances.

 

[BatMatt]

Cracked is usually pretty funny and clever, but I think they miss the boat here (or Ferry?). First of all Joker did think Dent was Batman, he told him that ("the way you threw yourself after her.") Also I hardly think he cared if it was Rachel or Dent that died, because it was just his game ("you'll have to choose"). The only thing they get right is the ferries, when no one checked them for explosives. But that's just simply called a plot hole my friends

 

[Jonathan Crane]

Only blind fanboys didn't see that TDK plot isn't that great and logical.

 

[Magenta666]

Cracked is usually pretty funny and clever, but I think they miss the boat here (or Ferry?). First of all Joker did think Dent was Batman, he told him that ("the way you threw yourself after her.") Also I hardly think he cared if it was Rachel or Dent that died, because it was just his game ("you'll have to choose"). The only thing they get right is the ferries, when no one checked them for explosives. But that's just simply called a plot hole my friends

your post makes a lot of sense, and theres always the validation that he might not have had everything planned down to a T, some thing were adjusted depending on the outcome of certain stages

and of course its way too circumstantial to actually work, that doesnt make it bad

 

[JL Unlimited]

The only thing they get right is the ferries, when no one checked them for explosives. But that's just simply called a plot hole my friends

I noticed this too on first viewing but I always figured that the Joker had all of the National Guard and police force sweeping the bridges and tunnels for bombs and no one would think twice for checking the ferries. At this point, no one suspected the Joker was a liar except Batman (maybe because of what happened to Rachel). Even Gordon fell for it again when he thought the Joker would actually line his men up to be target practice in front of the big windows of the Pruitt Building.

The Joker was a "Man of his Word" to the public. He kept killing until Batman (Dent) revealed his identity and he blew up a hospital because Reese wasn't killed. Plus, I'm not sure on this but how often does a crew check the engine room before leaving the docks and how safe is it to stuff people in there?

 

[Anjow1060]

Not for nothing, but Joker knew Batman would go for rachel. Thus why he switched the locations on him.

Not to mention:
"Don't worry Rachel, they're coming for you."

In those kind of situations I can't think of any many who would save another man over a woman's life. Women and children first. He played Batman like a fiddle.

The only things I found fault with was the bus at the beginning. If he tagged on at the end, then yeah, I maybe could have bought it. But he got right in the middle. Unless his thugs were also bus drivers. Could have been. That and how the Joker's internal clock let him know when he had just enough time to tell Batman so that they were cutting it close. That was a little too coincidental. I didn't mind anything else. Joker just made it up as he went along IMO. He had a goal, yes. But how he got to it he just played by the cards he was dealt every step along the way. [/bad pun rhetoric] lol.

As I raised in another thread, this is Nolan's biggest fault in his film making. He relies on such documentry realistic aspects and storytelling (not the same kind of realism people complain about) but that he removes himself from being a bias party in the story telling process. Which, in turn, screws the audience on emotion and knowledge in some instances. These being one of those examples. See the Bale's voice thread for my rant on the other.

- Jow

 

[DACrowe]

That site was supposed to be funny. I laughed reading it. The Dead Pool writing and the one on Smokin' Aces were the funniest. Some fans take things too seriously.

The point of the Joker is his plans are ridiculously contrived, should not work and he should be killed a thousand times over, but as he is literally the ONLY ONE STILL STANDING in the police station at the end of this sequence, it just always works out for him. It is supposed to be funny, in a sick way.

Also, if you want to talk about unbelievable how the **** did Joker wire an ENTIRE HOSPITAL, door frames, windows, et. al. to explode without anyone noticing? And if Gordon got the tip from Maroni that Gotham General was going to go boom in the next 3-4 hours. Why did he not have a crack top bomb team from GCPD there at least looking for the bomb and seeing if they can save the city's main HOSPITAL, instead of just not doing anything until an hour before it is supposed to go off and just evacauate the whole thing?!

And yeah, no one noticing the tons of explosives in the ferries before taking off is a bit of a huge contrivance as well.

But hey, it's a movie. So go with the flow.

 

[TLH]

This isn't convincing. I always perceived the Joker as 'going with the flow'.

The armored-truck scene occurred because he wanted to kill Dent. If we wasn't able to get the job done, he had a back up plan -- he'd go to jail, Wuertz and Ramirez would fulfill their roles, and everything else would go as it did.

But how can the author of that article believe that the Joker wanted to blow off half of Harvey's face? That wasn't intentional. The point was that Rachel Dawes would die and that would push Harvey over the edge, regardless of cool-looking scars. So he can eliminate this from this list of things the Joker planned on.

I agree that it may be difficult to get away with wiring buildings/boats to blow with nobody noticing, but it's a film, not a biography. These types of things could happen under the right circumstances; we're just led to believe the Joker knows how to take advantage of his surroundings and create the right circumstances

 

[Arsh]

Some people seem to be taking this too seriously... it's just jokes.

 

[Goodfellas]

Plus you all can analyze it all you want but when it comes down to it its still A MOVIE


Nolan has this whole realism thing but think some of your forgetting this is a movie so of course if he gets way to realistic than it becomes stupid


And to explan that whole bomb situation the only part i never understood is how Joker survived the blast other than that is not that unlogical

THe Joker pretty much hade a plan A and a plan B

PLan A was to hopefully succeed in killing dent and PLan B was if he didnt kill dent to get caught

I mean he brought a rocket launcher for crying out loud iam pretty sure he hade a good feel that he was going to kill Dent but of course he knew Batman would pull some kind of **** ouf of his ass to save the day .

Plus think about everyone know The Joker was going to attack the convoy so he did the opposite by letting them capture him

 

[Anjow1060]

That site was supposed to be funny. I laughed reading it. The Dead Pool writing and the one on Smokin' Aces were the funniest. Some fans take things too seriously.

The point of the Joker is his plans are ridiculously contrived, should not work and he should be killed a thousand times over, but as he is literally the ONLY ONE STILL STANDING in the police station at the end of this sequence, it just always works out for him. It is supposed to be funny, in a sick way.

Also, if you want to talk about unbelievable how the **** did Joker wire an ENTIRE HOSPITAL, door frames, windows, et. al. to explode without anyone noticing? And if Gordon got the tip from Maroni that Gotham General was going to go boom in the next 3-4 hours. Why did he not have a crack top bomb team from GCPD there at least looking for the bomb and seeing if they can save the city's main HOSPITAL, instead of just not doing anything until an hour before it is supposed to go off and just evacauate the whole thing?!

And yeah, no one noticing the tons of explosives in the ferries before taking off is a bit of a huge contrivance as well.

But hey, it's a movie. So go with the flow.

Gordon didn't get tipped off about the Hospitals. Joker had Maroni and Chechen meeting him on the ship so he could kill them off. Maroni was smart enough to see it coming, so he went to Gordon to tell him how to get Joker. Gordon was prepping his team "I want Lau alive, the Joker, either way." to go after the boat and get back Lau. Before he could, Joker called in his threat on Reese.

Why Gordon didn't have a team still going in on the ship to get Lau, the priority, but oh well.

- Jow

 

[JL Unlimited]

Also, if you want to talk about unbelievable how the **** did Joker wire an ENTIRE HOSPITAL, door frames, windows, et. al. to explode without anyone noticing? And if Gordon got the tip from Maroni that Gotham General was going to go boom in the next 3-4 hours. Why did he not have a crack top bomb team from GCPD there at least looking for the bomb and seeing if they can save the city's main HOSPITAL, instead of just not doing anything until an hour before it is supposed to go off and just evacauate the whole thing?!

Maroni didn't tip Gordon about Gotham General being blown up. He only told Gordon where the Joker was going to be (with the pile of money). It wasn't until the Joker called Engel's show and gave the public one hour to kill Reese or he would blow up a hospital did Gordon learn of this. The Joker never said which hospital he was going to blow up either.

 

[JL Unlimited]

Why Gordon didn't have a team still going in on the ship to get Lau, the priority, but oh well.

- Jow

I don't think they were anywhere near the Joker at this point. They were still at the MCU, according to the script. Anyway, with the army the Joker had gathered, Gordon would have needed more than just a team to get Lau.

 

[Rasputin911]

I was able to follow the plan pretty easily until the explosion part. They should have put in some explanation why everyone in the room was dead except for Joker.

Yeah it adds to his demonic prescence, but this isn't a fantasy film, its a crime drama.

 

[Seditionary]

I think yer misunderstanding the joker. Hes a criminal mastermind...something one of you nerds can't wrap their mind around is something he could do ten fold. He lies to every single person in the movie but batman and knows exactly what everyone will do the whole damn time.

He plays the stinking city like a harp from hell...(wait someone else said that)

The reason hes the only one alive in the police station is because he ducked behind a file cabinet.

 

[Boom]

I think yer misunderstanding the joker. Hes a criminal mastermind...something one of you nerds can't wrap their mind around is something he could do ten fold. He lies to every single person in the movie but batman and knows exactly what everyone will do the whole damn time.

He plays the stinking city like a harp from hell...(wait someone else said that)

The reason hes the only one alive in the police station is because he ducked behind a file cabinet.

...He slouched . I would hardly regard that as a "duck," considering he was still standing.