Question: Exactly what is the significance of Harvey Dent using a two headed coin, before he becomes Two Face (other than to hint at his eventual transformation)? As Two Face, I understand it of course serves as a symbol of his duel mentalities and their constant clash for dominance, but as simply Harvey Dent what is it meant to represent?
Answer: It's something that he uses to put people off-balance a little. He appears to put chance into his decisions, however, as both sides of the coins are heads, in reality, he'll always get the answer he wants, simply by calling that option as heads. As a rule, Harvey doesn't take it terribly seriously, but it does illustrate his repeated point that there's no such thing as luck - that you make your own luck. By using a double-headed coin, he's doing just that.
Question: Why does Fox tell Batman close to the end, that as long as the sonar machine (don't know the name) is there, he won't be?
Answer: Fox views the sonar machine, which can basically monitor the entirety of Gotham City, as an unacceptable invasion of privacy. He's gone along with Bruce's activities as Batman so far, but this, in his opinion, is overstepping the mark. As such, he tells Bruce that if Bruce keeps the machine, using it to spy on the people of Gotham, then he's no longer willing to work for him.
Question: Near the beginning, when Alfred sees Bruce is not in bed, he goes to the Wayne Enterprises private property. There a weirdly shaped metal structure that looks like it's tilting over and what looks like a dilapidated building in the middle tilted to the side. What is the structure supposed to be?
Answer: It looks like a large panel on the side of the huge crane. I think it has openings for access to the crane machinery or something like that. Maybe a crane operator could describe it better but that's what it looks like to me.
Question: I can understand why Batman would take the blame for the murders Harvey committed but why would he also take the blame for the ones the Joker is responsible for?
Answer: He doesn't, he only takes the blame for Harvey's murders. He personally blames himself for the Joker because of escalation but he most certainly does not accept any public blame for the Joker's crimes.
Question: Who does the Joker get on the bus with after blowing up the hospital? Weren't those the people who just evacuated? If so, they definitely would not have waited there for him or let him on.
Answer: He does indeed get on a bus with several people who were evacuated. The bus also contains his henchmen and is driven by one. He makes his escape by hiding in plain sight (as one of several buses that evacuated civilians from the hospital). The passengers of the bus then become the hostages in the high rise scene.
Question: After the Joker cuts a man's face for the first time, he brings some kind of stick out and breaks it into thirds. Then he throws it at the ground and states something about "tryouts". I didn't really understand that scene, can someone please explain it?
Answer: He tells Gambol's three henchmen that there's an opening in his organisation. However, there's only one opening, so he's giving them the opportunity to prove themselves. Whichever one is left alive gets to join - he breaks the pool cue to give them a weapon to use against each other.
Question: Would the people who tried to kill Coleman Reese be prosecuted and convicted, given the difficult situation they were put into by the Joker?
Answer: Certainly they did break the law, and if the Gotham Police Dept. or the D.A. were so inclined, they could pursue convictions against them. However, it's probable that Commissioner Gordon and/or the new D.A., who understood the situation, elected not to prosecute.
Question: Why did Gordon say he wanted Lau alive but The Joker either way? Shouldn't they try to take them both alive and only kill them if they resisted?
Chosen answer: Because Lau has information about the mob, the battle against which is still the first priority of the Gotham Police Department; the Joker is, as Harvey Dent later says, a mad dog let off the leash. Gordon isn't telling his officers to murder the Joker in cold blood, he's simply saying that Lau is more important to them, and he would rather have him for further questioning/testimony.
Question: How exactly is Dent responsible for the death of Rachel? I can see how Gordon is (he didn't fight corrupt cops earlier) and how Batman is to some degree (he rescued Dent instead of Rachel). But seriously, Dent was tied up and bound to a similar fate as Rachel (getting blown up) and had no part in her death. Any thoughts?
Answer: Dent feels respondsible because he went along with Batman and Gordon's plan. He let Gordon and Batman do it their way without doing much more than doing a little complaining. He knew Gordon had corrupt cops in his unit but in the end he chose not to fight with Gordon over that detail. So in a way, he felt that if he had done and fought more(or not gotten involved at all) that in some way he might have been able to prevent Rachel's death.
Question: I was just wondering if Lucius Fox is still the head of Wayne Enterprises or not? He tells Batman he's resigning because of the sonar machine. Then he says he won't stay as long as the machine is there. But at the end he destroys it. So is he staying or is he gone?
Answer: He's still there. He tells Bruce that he'll allow the machine to be used once, because of the threat of the Joker, but if he keeps it after that, he'll resign. Bruce tells him to type his name in once it's done - Fox does that and realises that Bruce has set up a destruct code in advance, showing that Bruce wasn't happy with the machine either and only set it up out of desperation. With the machine gone, the reason for Fox's intended resignation is gone too. Ergo, he stays.
Question: Did Heath Ledger manage to film all of the scenes he was supposed to before his death?
Answer: Yes he did. I think principal filming was finished in November of 2007. However, it should be noted he did not finish filming all his scenes for "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (2009).
Answer: Yes, he died a few months after principal photography ended.
Question: Is it just me, or did Heath Ledger seem much shorter in The Dark Knight than he did in his other movies? If so, how did they do it?
Chosen answer: One of his character traits as the Joker is his hunched posture. He's not standing fully upright.
Question: How did Dent figure out that Lau was dirty? Before the rooftop scene, where he yells at Gordon for not keeping him in the loop, there was never any indication that Dent was aware of Lau's dirty dealings.
Chosen answer: Lau transferred all the mob bosses' money to China and fled to Hong Kong, because he said the DA's office was about to raid the banks. So if Dent's office was keeping tabs on the mob accounts in preparation for the raid, they would have detected the transfers and linked them to Lau.
Question: What type of gun does the Joker use in the bank robbery?
Answer: It's a Glock 17, converted to fire full auto. None of the close-up shots show the fire selector switch on the left side of the slide which is a unique feature on the Glock 18 (and Glock 18c). This is also consistent with the Joker's anarchic nature - a modification like that would be dangerous to the user if not performed by a professional gunsmith, but the Joker probably wouldn't care.
Question: In the trailer the Joker walks towards Batman on the street, pulls out a knife and tosses it to his other hand, but in the movie they don't show that. Was that part cut out of the movie?
Chosen answer: Trailers are almost invariably put together before the final edit of the film is locked down. As such, it's not uncommon for them to contain shots from deleted scenes, alternate takes and so forth. The shot that you refer to wasn't used in the final version of the film, that's all.
Question: Why do Gordon and Batman say that Dent has killed 5 people? I only counted Maroni, his driver, Wuertz and possibly Ramirez.
Answer: I always assumed the fifth death was Dent himself... Batman just says "five deaths", he doesn't say "Dent killed five others"
Answer: Harvey himself killed Maroni, the driver and Wuertz. The Joker killed a second cop in Harvey's hospital room - as the police don't know that the Joker was there, they would assume that Harvey was responsible. That's four. The fifth is possibly Maroni's other guard - there's one by the car as Maroni gets in, and Dent presumably kills him so he can get into the car too.
Question: What car is used in the robbery scene at the start of the movie?
Answer: If you are asking about the silver car the henchmen pick Joker up in, the car is a GM Suburban.
Answer: This seems too easy but it's just a standard American school bus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus. Maybe there was another car you were asking about?
Answer: The Joker has planned the robbery to the last detail and has a talent for knowing how people will react in certain situations, so he was able to position himself so the other robber would be standing in the path of the bus.
Captain Defenestrator