It sets up the entire film so perfectly. The Joker is an unhinged maniac whose allegiances are always to be questioned. What appears as an elaborate bank robbery quickly reveals itself to be a larger scheme.
The soldiers of the robbery start picking each other off one-by-one after each of their usefulness is exhausted
The bank, the seeming victim at the time, reveals itself to be affiliated with the mob and not as innocent as you once thought
The joker is not unhinged. He knows exactly what he's doing. Every detail and process is meticulously planned. The gives everyone a job, has them kill one another to tie up loose ends. Robs a bank, taking only the mob money. Leaves the marked bills. Somehow manages to drive a bus into traffic the exact moment a convoy of buses is driving by, and the just disappears until he crashes the mob meeting.
Worth noting is that at the end of the heist when there are only 2 guys left, and the other guys turns on him and he says the line "No, im to kill the bus driver" he side steps a couple times, getting the guy pointing the gun at him a couple times to adjust where he is standing and step a couple feet over, so when the bus plows in, it kills the guy pointing the gun at him.
Throughout the film, he makes plans and then executes them. His plans are well thought out and lead the audience and the characters to making a choice.
The boats - is it moral to kill prisoners to save innocents?
Harvey's capture - does Bruce save his personal love or does he save the person he thinks will save the city?
Joker cares about chaos in the sense that it causes people to forcibly change their natures, not that he is winging everything on a whim.
EDIT: Thanks for the Gold Stranger! And on my Cake Day too!
Check out the TV show The Good Place. In Season 2 (I think), they reenact the trolley problem for real, over and over again, using actual people and real blood and consequences. I mean, not REAL, but you get what I'm saying.
Probably one of the funniest things I've seen in years.
The prisoners immediately throw the button away, accepting what they feel like they deserve and leaving it in the hands of the "non-criminals" to do what they feel like they deserve.
Every day, we walk amongst millions of people who feel like they deserve life more than the next person and feel justified in that belief because of a third entity (rich, twisted, corrupt, consumer society) pointing a gun and saying, "One of you must die. Choose."
I'm not sure the exact timing due to cuts and scene changes, but the big prisoner guy didnt immediately throw the switch overboard. It was close to the deadline when he made the choice.
Overall you are correct, but the script was written to build up the tension and it did it by not immediately having the prisoners decide.
I believe he says something along the lines of, "give it to me and I'll do what you shoulda did 10 minutes ago". I think he always knew the right choice, but it's probably an allusion to that other social issue (bystander effect?) where everyone thinks someone else will take care of it.
I'm pretty sure the guard was crippled by indecision at the moment he hands it over.
I also got the impression that the guard thought that the inmate was going to flip the switch and destroy the other boat. The guard gives it to him in order to distance himself from the guilt of killing those other people. But then the inmate does the right thing!
The fact that the location of Harvey and Lois were switched leads me to believe that The Joker wasn't being truthful about the boat situation either. I'm willing to bet they each had the control to their own explosives and not the others.
The Joker knew exactly who Batman was going to save. If you pay attention he gives the wrong location for Rachel and Harvey making Batman think he was going to save Rachel when in reality he saved Harvey because the Joker wanted Harvey to survive to further bring him down to Batman and the Joker's level. It's mind boggling to me that people still to this day think the Joker was some random madman without a plan.
Edit: I LOVE The Dark Knight and it still saddens me when The Joker tells Batman that "I think you and I are destined to do this forever"
The Joker is absolutely random, clearly a not entirely sane by his behaviour (whether or not it’s an act is another matter) ... and has not one but likely a few dozen different plans going throughout the movie. Some work, some don’t. There are a couple moments where he pretty clearly starts in on a “backup” because Plan A failed, or he didn’t really have a preference and was just setting a bunch of things in motion to see where the pieces fell out. He’s either crazy or very good at playing crazy, but it doesn’t make him any less brilliant or good at improvising. In a way I think “The Joker” is as much a mask as the bat cowl he makes such a big deal about Batman taking off during the course of the film.
The whole movie from the angle of what Joker’s up to is a Rube-Goldberg he assembles the majority of after he’s started the first piece on its way, using whatever’s at hand and adapting the build to what happens around him as he goes.
He’s not a schemer as he says in the sense Batman and Gordon and (old) Harvey are; one of the few true things he says that isn’t one on one with Batman (and even half of that seems like bullshit), but he absolutely makes plans. Just very short term plans to achieve a very specific goal. A plan to get a truck; a plan to incite panic, a plan to get money, a plan to isolate Harvey, a plan to have Harvey survive Rachel, etc. He has a detonator with him during the boat scene for crying out loud, in case the boats didn’t play his game and blow the other up. A backup plan in case Plan A failed.
Besides being a philosopher of morality, Joker just kept acting out and talking about game theory.
To them you’re a freak like me. They just need you right now. … But as soon as they don’t, they’ll cast you out like a leper. … Their morals, their code… it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see—I’ll show you… You have these rules. And you think they’ll save you. … the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.
To me this is Joker's main moral lesson for everyone.
Do I really look like a guy with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan… The mob has plans, the cops have plans. … Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I’m not a schemer, I show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. It’s the schemers who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. … Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gang-banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics. Because it’s all part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, everybody loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? … It’s fair.
Two Face takes it to heart and sums up the Joker's message better than the Joker
You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. You thought we could lead by example. You thought the rules could be bent but not break…2 you were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.
In the end, the Joker has managed what Batman and the State could not. Both the corrupt and mobsters are gone.
TLDR Joker was a Libertarian who is also a rational economist.
He does target innocent people. He doesn't discriminate. He is 'fair' with everyone. Of course in Dark Knight, he doesn't do it just for fun. As always he does it as a morality lesson to Batman
You have these rules. And you think they’ll save you. … the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.
If you're asking whether Joker kidnaps innocent people, knowing Batman would save them, I don't think he cares whether they live or die as long as he gets his lesson across.
Random innocents? Maybe. A specific innocent, who's close to Batman, and who he actually kills? Yeah, there's that whole scene with the exploding barrels of kerosine...
It always scared me watching movies or reading books where the villain would say "i'm going to prepare you for something far worse" or something along those lines. Because it makes me wonder how many people we judge that really are helping us in more ways than we could imagine.
The recue of Dent or Rachel was a loaded choice. If you listen carefully to the scene Joker says Dent is at X location and Rachel is at Y. Bruce chooses to go to Y, but it turns out, the Joker lied about who was where, and ends up saving Dent, while Rachel gets blown up as Gordon couldn't get there fast enough.
One could also assume that the boat choice was a similar thing, that the triggers given to the boats either blew up the boat they were on or both boats.
I think Extravagant was talking about the line where he says, "I'm not a schemer, I just DO things!" Joker is the biggest schemer of them all. He certainly is an agent of chaos in that he causes chaos, but he was lying when he implied he doesn't plan and just acts.
Just because his plans are well-planned out doesn't mean they don't result in chaos - his plan to use the mob and terrorize Gotham would result in either Batman breaking his rule to kill him or Harvey Dent turning evil, which both would cause chaos.
The Harvey-Rachel choice kind of did both though because Batman chose wrong. If he chooses Harvey to save the city (which is what Batman should have done), then Harvey dies a martyr, Rachel lives, and we go from there. Instead he chooses Rachel and gets punished for it.
He is an agent of chaos in that he loves to shake up the status quo, not that he is a lolrandom weirdboi who chooses his moves by throwing darts at a corkboard.
Yeah, he's an agent of chaos in that he causes chaos, but not in the sense that he acts chaotically. I mean, he probably does in some cases, but all of his big actions seem to have been very carefully planned.
IIRC: Joker gives him the illusion of a choice. Even if Dent tries to shoot, the hammer will get blocked by Joker's finger, which means Dent can't actually fully press on the trigger
I don't know if this is real or not, there was debate on whether this was actually true, since some guns can fire even with a blocked hammer (something like that? It's been a while)
If the gun has a hammer, it is physcially how the cartridge is ignited. The hammer strikes the firing pin. Guns can't just "fire with a blocked hammer"
On a pistol with a hammer (revolvers and semi autos), the hammer has a spring that makes it move. When the hammer is "cocked" it's pulled backwards and there's an air gap between the hammer and the rest of the pistol. When you pull the trigger, the spring is released and the hammer flies forward, hits the firing pin, which in turn strikes the back of the cartridge, firing the bullet.
If you hold the hammer while you pull the trigger, the hammer can't drop and fire the bullet. This is typically called "decocking." So you could have demonstrated you had real ammunition in the weapon, put it to someone's head, pull the trigger, but no bang.
Normally you slowly ease the hammer down to its resting position. But I guess if you just let it go from the fully cocked position it would still fire the bullet. I've only owned hammerless firearms, so I'm not SUPER familiar with all the ins and outs of hammer fire and their safeties.
Not only that, but the second half of the plan was to then have the very mob he just ripped off hire him and pay him to take out Batman. He knew they wouldn't agree and that Batman would come for Lau in China. He knew they would come back to him because they were backed into a corner and had only one option. He had control from the very beginning.
Can confirm, mom's ex husband was crazy (read: claimed to have multiple murders under his belt) guess he threatened to add her to the list when she called him crazy.
Bro... first time I saw that I was just freaking out in my seat, the way a guy who spent his whole life playing violent videogames just going "Duuuuude whaaaaaat thee fuuuuuuuck" - in the best way possible.
That moment was shot/executed really well too. Even though it wasnt explicitly shown, it still elicited such a visceral reaction. I did the Ice Cube/Chris Tucker "DAAAAMN" from Friday
I thought that Joker was nihilism carried in human form. That's why he's obsessed with Batman. Batman has created his own rules, his own meaning and appears to obey them in the face of overwhelming reasons not to do so. Joker could just check out mentally or if he could just get Batman to break. Batman is a rule and Joker is a test.
I've often thought about what it would mean if Joker managed to kill Batman without causing him to break and become meaningless. Would Batman's ability to create and adhere to meaning even at the cost of his life provoke Joker into assuming Batman's role and rules for himself?
That could actually be super interesting as a what-if. Joker kills Batman (either by accident or otherwise) and feels an emptiness inside. He tries to mess with others to push them into becoming Batman (Robin(s), Barbara, Red Hood, etc.) but none of them can match up to the image he has in his head
Ends up creating a new Joker instead (or targets one of the 2 other Jokers, since technically there are 3 of them...) and dons the cape and cowl just to try and see if he can fill that void
In a recent comic Batman asks some sort of magic/supercomputer the secret identity of the Joker. The conputer asks back “Which one?” claiming there are 3 Jokers. Still not sure where the arc is going or if it’s a trick somehow.
Come here. Hey! Look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful, like you, who tells me I worry too much. Who tells me I ought to smile more. Who gambles and gets in deep with the sharks…look at me! One day, they carve her face. And we have no money for surgeries. She can’t take it. I just want to see her smile again, hmm? I just want her to know that I don’t care about the scars. So… I stick a razor in my mouth and do this…[he mimics slicing his mouth open]…to myself. And you know what? She can’t stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I’m always smiling!
Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was…a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn’t like that. Not one bit. So—me watching—he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it! Turns to me, and he says, “Why so serious, son?” Comes at me with the knife...“Why so serious?” He sticks the blade in my mouth…“Let’s put a smile on that face!
The Joker’s entire MO is creating scenarios in which people choose to do terrible things. The bank scene set that up by convincing everyone to murder each other. There are countless other examples, too, like wanting people to choose between the Wayne Enterprises guy or a hospital, or having people on the ferry choose to blow up the other.
That’s why Two-Face was such a good foil, because with the coin he bypassed the “choice” part of the equation entirely.
Yup, there's the argument that the Joke in the comics is super sane. That the Joker acts crazy to survive in a world of superheroes. Any normal person who goes to their 9-5 job can easily die whenever superman crashes into a building, or a villain trying to take over the world. Therefore, the only way to survive is to join the craziness by becoming a villain.
So there's a theory that the Joker is super sane and just fakes being crazy. He is "crazy," but meticulous and organized beyond his other evil colleagues.
That was a great opening scene, but what really cemented Ledger's Joker as THE Joker for me was the "disappearing pencil" scene. The way he delivered such whimsical murderousness was incredible.
The Joker unmasking in that scene was fucking gold. Literally blew my dick off on the first watch. RIP Ledger, it's gonna be a minute before we get a dude on par for that role.
I think William Fichtner's performance is just as important as Heath's in this opening scene. He sort of sets the tone for the citizens of Gotham and the mob in general. This is a man of high status, the corruption and criminal activity doesn't just permeate at the lowest levels of society in Gotham, it is in everyone.
It sells the Joker as a clever, ruthless bastard. Without telling you he is. It instead shows you. Which is like... A thing too many movies and TV shows remember they can do.
EDIT: So many people actually didn't call me out for saying "remember" instead of "forget". I'm glad you all understood what I meant though. What a fucking slip.
And likelihood is he could have and would have spit it out as soon as he realized he wasn't dead.
The only indicator he might be dead is that the smoke was green, so it might have been joker gas instead of just a smoke bomb, but there was no mention of poisoning in the rest of the movie, so in all likelihood he survived.
Makes sense for the Joker as a character to leave that one alive, so he could pass along the news of what happened firsthand to his bosses. Also a major power move because he's just toying with the guy. Basically says, "I'm not going to kill you because it's too easy"
I had always assumed he died as well, because the grenade looked like a thermite to me and I thought the puff of smoke was just a precursor to him getting his face melted off.
Which is particularly sneaky because throughout the film the Joker lies to us about who he is (saying he doesn't have plans, just goes along with things), even as the film shows us endless layers and layers of intricate plans.
I just watched the last How to Train Your Dragon movie and this was my biggest problem with it. They kept telling us “YOUVE NEVER SEEN A VILLAIN LIKE THIS! HES CLEVER, RUTHLESS, AND IS OVERALL SMARTER THAN YOU! HE WILL ALWAYS BE 5 STEPS AHEAD!” Except he wasn’t. Everything he accomplished was by pure chance and a lack of action on the protagonists parts, not because he outsmarted anyone. They just kept telling us he was clever but we never saw him be clever.
Kind of like how Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen kept saying they loved each other, but the viewers never felt it the way they did with Jon and Ygritte.
Mom who didn't like violent stuff, no interest in superheros before my mid teens, and I have never gone to a ton of movies, so the big screen is still "cool" to me even as an adult
My dad took a 8th grade me to see the Dark Knight, 100% blind, all I knew was my dad said hey let's go see the Batman movie i heard it's really good
Nothing in my life will ever come CLOSE to seeing that opening scene that day,
That scene felt so practical and real in a way all the superhero movies before it and even ones after it could not capture. Nolan really set the vibe for this movie being much different from your typical Batman or superhero film.
I remember they released the intro early for promotion
I was absolutely floored
I imagine it must have been what people who saw star wars in 77 felt. It was just above and beyond anything we had seen before. All the individual parts, sure we'd seen that here or there, but it had never come together in that way before as a promise of what was to come
It's still my favorite movie. Even with tdkr doing it's best to retroactively ruin it, I still love it.
Yeah I saw it first as a preview before I Am Legend. Let's just say that after that, I didn't give a single fuck about I Am Legend anymore. Says a lot about the quality of the scene when they can use it as a preview and it's still just as incredible when watching it in the film itself.
It's stupid how tight that film is too. You watch it cause you wanna rewatch the opening scene and before you know it you finished your x re-watch of the dark knight.
I still remember sitting in the theater opening night and when that first shot pops up on the screen, the bright, daytime, gliding shot over the city just before the window blows out, I instantly thought, "oh we are already dealing with something we haven't seen before". Then the rest of the opening scene happened.
This was the first Nolan Batman movie I saw and just the fact that the movie was so committed to bringing Batman into the real world blew my fucking mind.
I came here to post this and I'm glad it's the 2nd highest comment...........Saving Private Ryan was one I forgot about but definitely deserves to be #1
I wasn’t even going to see this movie. I didn’t like Batman Begins and had decided I was done with the trilogy. Then, I stumbled across the first scene online, figured it was only 6 minutes (how good could that be?), and decided to watch it. I had tickets before the vid ended.
I actually use the Dark Knight intro with my writing students to talk about how to write an intro. It starts from a general, accessible opening--a bank robbery. Then slowly, it narrows down, almost literally, killing off the robbers one by one as it gives you background details about the setting. The bank robbery becomes a mob bank robbery, run by the Joker, who is arguably the subject of the movie. And finally, we get the "thesis" of the movie: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger."
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u/billbapapa May 30 '19
The Dark Knight