Joker

Plot hole: Arthur's appearance on the talk show makes hardly any sense. The show is a close port of Johnny Carson's Tonight show, for a huge audience, and yet he receives no screening at all, they put him (someone NOBODY in the staff knows the first thing about) on the air literally without a clue of what he is gonna do or say, and wearing a highly controversial costume. And, when he murders Murray, it is implied that everyone was able to see him doing that right away and he is cut 'off the air' at some point, as if the show were really live, which is preposterous for this sort of program outside of specific events (similar to how in contemporary TV "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", is not live). Even earlier when Arthur opened the letter his mom addressed to Wayne, you could hear the end credits of "Live with Murray Franklin" with the announcer saying the show is "Taped live in front of a studio audience." (00:48:00)

Sammo

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Suggested correction: I don't see this is a problem due to the fact that we can't be sure what really happens as apposed to what only happens in Arthur's mind. So if the whole TV show appearance is just another fantasy, he would have skipped the who screening process.

You are free to treat the whole movie as something where things don't make sense because in the fan theory of your liking it's all meant to have subtle hints that the movie is all a fantasy, but the movie does not present that particular talk show scene as a dream sequence. It'd be silly to nitpick the logic in the scene when he is picked from the audience by Murray at the beginning because it's obviously presented as nothing more than his fantasy, but his appearance on the show is what the movie built up to up to that point and is not treated as a parenthesis where logic should be suspended, nor disproven like the scenes with his girlfriend standing in.

Sammo

Plot hole: Given Arthur's mother was placed in an asylum it seems unlikely she would've been allowed to keep him once released. The state would've placed him in another home.

Rob245

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Suggested correction: Nobody says she raised him as a child. As soon as he turned 18 he could have chosen to live with her again. Quite possibly because he didn't like his foster home.

lionhead

Factual error: Based on the films being shown at the theater, the movie appears to be set in 1981. One of the TV commercials shows the Energizer Bunny, which didn't make its first appearance until 1988.

wizard_of_gore

More mistakes in Joker

Social Worker: They don't give a shit about people like you, Arthur. And they don't give a shit about people like me either.

More quotes from Joker

Trivia: While the time period of the movie isn't explicitly stated, the movies showing at the cinema the Waynes are at (Zorro The Gay Blade, Wolfen, Excalibur, and Arthur) were all released in 1981, making that the likely year it's set. The Zorro reference is certainly a nod to established comic continuity, where the Waynes were watching The Mark Of Zorro.

More trivia for Joker

Question: Does Arthur kill Sophie when he realises he's hallucinated their relationship? I know there may not be a concrete answer to this.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Yeah it's completely up to the viewer to believe he killed her or not. I don't think he did, he liked her, just like Gary. I think he visited to see if it was all in his head, with that confirmed he just left.

lionhead

Answer: Todd Philips actually answered this in an interview on IndieWire; "As the filmmaker and the writer I am saying he doesn't kill her. We like the idea that it's almost like a litmus test for the audience to say, 'How crazy is he?' Most people that I've spoken to think he didn't kill her because they understand the idea that he only kills people that did him wrong. She had nothing to do with it. Most people understood that, even as a villain, he was living by a certain code. Of course he didn't kill this woman down the hall."

Sammo

More questions & answers from Joker

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