The Dark Knight The Dark Knight - List of Issues and Questions

[Jordanstine]

Posted this on another site but can't get some answers. Anyway I decided to re-watch TDK (for like the 4th-5th time), and have always wanted to ask these questions:

1) Joker escaping bank robbery with school bus

When Joker robs the bank in the beginning and exits the building through a school bus, how come no one seemed to noticed? Joker just drove a massive school bus into a bank, and the later out of said opened bank? He then drives his bus in between other school buses filled with kids screaming while dust and asphalt were raining down the bus' ceiling? There were basically more than a dozen witnesses to this including the incoming traffic from the other lane, not to mention the 4-5 minutes that it took in between the bus breaking into the bank, to the men loading up the cash, to Joker talking to the bank manager and placing a purple gas canister in his mouth, and then driving out of the bank... and yet he still managed to elude everyone after all that.

2) Joker crashing Dent's party hosted by Wayne

[Edit: Saw there was an individual thread about this already.] So after Joker throws Rachel off the building to which Batman dives out of a building to rescue her and both fall n# of stories and through a car, what happens afterwards? Did the Joker just... leave the party? Did he give up looking for Dent? Did Batman forget that the Joker was still up at the party with a lot of innocent civilians? There was no closure to the scene. Next scene was basically at Gordon's office talking to Stephens.

3) Joker escaping Gotham Central prison

So after Joker's capture, Gordon un-handcuffs him so that he could be interrogated by Batman in his cell... okay... but after Batman finishes interrogating the Joker, they all just leave without handcuffing him back afterwards. To make matters worse, not only was Joker un-handcuffed but they stationed a detective INSIDE the cell to watch over him? Really? How about OUTSIDE the cell instead, that way Joker wouldn't be able to subdue the detective which lead to the escape?

4) Batman telling Gordon to put the blame on Dent's killings on him

Noble act at the end by Batman. But why even need to do that? Why can't Batman have just told Gordon to put the blame on Dent's killings on the Joker, or the Joker's men, or even some of the mob? Heck it could even be made into a mystery homicide for now. Even Dent's death could be accidental coz it was accidental. Now people are supposed to believe that Batman killed Dent who had supported him through the media throughout the entire film? Why does it even have to be on Batman? It didn't make sense throughout the whole establishment of Batman's character in the entire film. So Batman after being a good guy for 99% of the film through the media for all the general public to see and known to have not killed, all of a sudden would be believed to have killed people in the last 1% of the film?

5) If Dent was found to be fallible now, that all his prior cases would be thrown out

This is probably one that the fanboys love to ask. So all those 400+ henchmen that Dent threw in jail will be set free, because Dent went on a little spree to go after the crooked cops that killed Rachel? Forget all the prior evidence convictions, all it takes is for Dent to commit a "later" crime, post-conviction (not even earlier pre-conviction) for the whole case to be thrown out? This is one of the reason for "Reason #4" above that Batman used himself to cover up (Batman exact lines to Dent during his interrogation of one of Joker's schizo henchmen in a dark alley - "If anyone saw this, everything would be undone. All the criminals you got off the streets would be released. And Jim Gordon will have died for nothing."). I mean we're not all law majors so most people will accept this as fact, and I know our justice system sucks, but this is really stretching it.

There were a few others more I can't remember right now but may update.

Any answers would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

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Here are a couple more that others have brought up:

6) Batman slams his bike into the Joker's truck and falls off it, pretending to be unconcious

Joker's thug, rather than shoot a defenseless lying Batman (likely on the exposed mouth/chin area) decides to un mask him. Okay I'll buy that. In doing so, the thug gets shocked while touching Batman's cowl. So wat does the Joker do? Rather than shoot him as well with his shotgun, after just seeing his own thug already get shocked, the Joker approaches Batman to un mask him as well! Into which Gordon comes out and pulls out his gun to arrest him. Dumb. Batman could've easily died twice in that scene if it wasn't for the Joker and his thug's stupidness.

7) Wayne finding a thumb print by rebuilding a bullet destroyed splinter

Here's a hard one, that a lot of people didn't even notice. Wayne went all CSI on this one, basically reconstructing destroyed splinters from bullet to get a thumbprint. He did so by firing bullets from his computer controlled gatling gun into brick walls that matched his crime scene. From there, he just did an easy comparison of the holes in which his computer reconstructs the bullet's fragments rebuilding it, and super imposing it on the brick wall from the crime scene.

That's all nice and dandy but Chris Nolan forgot one basic simple CSI rule - you must use the same bullet and the same gun for the whole thing to even be possible.

Basically, it's telling us that Wayne got extremely lucky by finding not just the right bullet, but also the right gun, a gatling gun. So that basically means the men who killed Mr. Dent and Mr. Harvey in the apartment used a gatling gun that fires 4,000 rounds per minute, but basically was used to just fire single shot controlled bursts in the crime scene.

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[Batfan16]

It's a movie. Why can't you just enjoy it like normal people do?

 

[HisMagicTrick]

I agree with the person above me. Movies are farfetched; hardly any movie could occur in real life. If films actually followed reality then most of them would be pretty boring. It's fine to look deeply at this, but let's face it, it's just a movie.

 

[Longshot777]

I agree with you on the last question on how Batman got that fingerprint on that bullet.

The Joker questions.. all I can say is...he's an agent of chaos...and sometimes the laws of probability goes his way. And I don't think he was going to unmask Batman at that time or he knew Gordon was behind him and like Gordon said, he planned to get caught in the first place.


As for him leaving the party, he couldn't find Dent so he left.

And the Joker couldn't get blamed with the killing of Dent because the Joker was captured already and Gordon was seen going somewhere and then was found later with a dead Dent...so it's easier to tell the truth that Batman killed him which he did accidentally. They just hid that Dent became bad.

 

[metalhead_dave]

Posted this on another site but can't get some answers. Anyway I decided to re-watch TDK (for like the 4th-5th time), and have always wanted to ask these questions:

I think you need to watch the movie a couple more times to get a few answers but I'll try my to answer.

1. He drove it in the middle of rush hour and camoflauged it by being with a bunch of other busses? I don't remember any screaming kids and I don't remember much asphalt on the bus while it was driving away?

2. As El Payso(sp) put it, he fell into a car in the attempt to save Rachel, maybe he was a little bit exhausted? He is human after all? But yeah, maybe there should have been closure to that scene.

3. They were in panic mode trying to save Dent and Rachel and did leave an experienced 20 year man to watch the Joker? And I remember someone saying the glass was broken from Batman putting Jokers head through it, someone on this site used it as a reason Joker got out without the door being buzzed, I'll use it as a reason they had someone in the cell with him.

4. If you were starting your own conspiracy, would you want to put the blame on anyone who could say otherwise? There are only two people who know the truth, Batman and Gordon, and because it's just them, and because they both agreed to it, it'll stay that way. Sure Batman had good will from the media(though none from reported Mike Engel) but he was still a "vigilante outlaw," it would be very easy for him to turn from lesser evil to public enemy number one.

5. Do you remember when the Mayor said "record set of appeals for quickest kick in the ash?" Dent's indictment of 500 criminals at once was a bold move in of itself, so he was walking on thin ice. It would all be undone because Dent would be a target of lawyers, politicians, and cops if he screwed up.

6. I'm pretty sure Batman was momentarly stunned and not faking or playing possom. The electro shock from the cowl was probably a safegaurd and Joker wasn't trying to unmask him, he had a knife pointed to Batman's face.

7. Okay I got nothing. But seriously, with half of those questions, the movie answers them itself.

 

[Lord]

I'm surprised that you didn't mention the scenne where they converted every cell phone in town into sonars

 

[helloiamben]

5) If Dent was found to be fallible now, that all his prior cases would be thrown out

This is probably one that the fanboys love to ask. So all those 400+ henchmen that Dent threw in jail will be set free, because Dent went on a little spree to go after the crooked cops that killed Rachel? Forget all the prior evidence convictions, all it takes is for Dent to commit a "later" crime, post-conviction (not even earlier pre-conviction) for the whole case to be thrown out? This is one of the reason for "Reason #4" above that Batman used himself to cover up (Batman exact lines to Dent during his interrogation of one of Joker's schizo henchmen in a dark alley - "If anyone saw this, everything would be undone. All the criminals you got off the streets would be released. And Jim Gordon will have died for nothing."). I mean we're not all law majors so most people will accept this as fact, and I know our justice system sucks, but this is really stretching it.

5. Do you remember when the Mayor said "record set of appeals for quickest kick in the ash?" Dent's indictment of 500 criminals at once was a bold move in of itself, so he was walking on thin ice. It would all be undone because Dent would be a target of lawyers, politicians, and cops if he screwed up.

Nah, Jordanstine is right that aspect of the film is totally contrived and wrong. The criminals that Dent helped put away wouldn't be "undone". It went through a court of law, they were found guilty and that was that. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense. The only function it serves is to give Batman a plausible reason to take the blame.

Don't agree? Well wrap your heads around this. If what Batman and Gordon says is true then how come everything didn't fall apart when Dent was arrested for claiming he was Batman? That's a crime.

There's no logic in any of it.

 

[The Joker]

Don't agree? Well wrap your heads around this. If what Batman and Gordon says is true then how come everything didn't fall apart when Dent was arrested for claiming he was Batman? That's a crime.

There's no logic in any of it.

Two reasons:

1. He wasn't convicted of Batman's crimes yet. You can't just confess to something without providing proof that you did it.
2. He was proven he wasn't Batman within a couple of hours of confessing to being Batman.

Wrap you head around that

 

[Lord]

Hellooooo, anybody remembers the phoses turning sonar?

 

[metalhead_dave]

Nah, Jordanstine is right that aspect of the film is totally contrived and wrong. The criminals that Dent helped put away wouldn't be "undone". It went through a court of law, they were found guilty and that was that. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense. The only function it serves is to give Batman a plausible reason to take the blame.

If we are going to bring the legal system into this(not that I'm any kind of lawyer) but when is the last time you've ever seen a verdict/conviction happen in the span of one/two weeks, which at MOST is the timespan for TDK. I doubt the 500 criminals were convicted, the only reason they were in jail, and on that prison boat were because they couldn't make bail... while guys like The Chechen and Sal Maroni could.

bad place that was Dent's plan to the Mayor "think of what you can do with 18 months of clean streets." Does it fly with the legal system? Probably not, but really, do we need an action movie that's one hundered percent accurate to court procedure?

But that's not the point. The point is, it was explained throughout the movie how if Dent screws up, his good work is undone, legally accurate or not. If you don't feel like watching the movie again, I'll sum it all up.

Dent makes a crazy bold move, this puts Dent on thin ice, if Dent screws up, it's all undone. He built it up quick, it could topple over just as quick. Dent screws up and Batman has to quickly pick up the pieces to keep it from toppling over.

Hellooooo, anybody remembers the phoses turning sonar?

Nobody responded to your issue the first time because it doesn't fit into the context of Jordanstine's. His issues have to do with characters actions that (to his perception) lack any logic, while your issue is more toward a "that kind of technology can't happen in real life."

Also, if you are going to nitpick about the sonar, why not just nitpick about how one man can dress up as a bat and beat a dozen armed goons to a pulp with his bare hands?

 

[Lord]

I only talk about the sonar because the title of the thread is issues and questions in the dark knight.
In fact i didn't notice the sonar thing until someby refered to it in another thread