The Dark Knight

Question: In the scene where Batman shows Lucius his giant sonar thing, why is he talking in his big scary voice? Lucius knows who he is, so why does he bother disguising his voice?

Answer: It's habit, and a sensible one at that. When he's in the mask, when he's being Batman, he uses the voice, even if the person he's with knows who he is. If he drops back to his normal voice with some people, it sets the precedent for using it while wearing the cowl, which means that he's more likely to slip up and use it around people who don't know, potentially revealing his true identity. If he sticks rigidly to using the voice when kitted up as Batman, regardless of situation, it minimises that possibility.

Tailkinker

Answer: At the bottom of his cowl Batman has devices designed to keep his voice at that level. The director revealed it, of you look at the right screenshots you can see speakers.

Question: How did the bomb at MCU leave everyone else totally incapacitated, while the Joker was completely unharmed? I know he has remarkable tolerance for pain, but come on! Also, if he was wearing some kind of protective clothing, they would have discovered it. So how did all the cops get knocked out while the Joker just walked away?

Answer: Look where he's standing just before it goes off. The Joker's carefully positioned himself close to a set of heavy filing cabinets, which are between him and the blast, protecting his legs and almost all of his torso. As the bomb goes off, you can see him duck his head down, allowing the blast to pass him by almost completely. He gets to walk away unscathed because the blast never really hits him.

Tailkinker

Question: When Bruce speeds through the light in the Lamborghini to intercept the intentional crash into Reese's car, Reese got out of the car and glanced at Bruce for a few seconds. Does Reese really know that Bruce is Batman? Because there is almost a look of uncertainty or a lack of recognition on Reese's face when he looks at Bruce.

zmbabich

Chosen answer: It certainly seems that Reese is pretty confident about Bruce being Batman. I always interpreted the look of uncertainty that Reese gives him as being more a degree of shock and shame that, even though he tried to blackmail him and then went to the TV station to reveal Bruce's big secret to the whole world, Bruce would still put his life on the line to save him.

Tailkinker

Question: Just how does Batman's grapple gun work? In Batman Begins, Fox says, 'It's magnetic' so I assume it can attach to anything metal. But the magnet would have to be extremely strong to support the weight of Batman, which begs the question how does it then detach from what he's fired it on? Also, where does he keep all the wire for it, and how does it have the magic ability to wrap its self around the Joker's ankle, when he's been thrown off the building and Batman shoots it at him?

Answer: The gun fires using compressed carbon dioxide as a propellant. The cable is wrapped in a coil around a motorized turbine within the gun. The pulley system in Batman's belt buckle allows him to reel himself in hands-free and still maintain equilibrium. There is a four-pronged grapple at the end of the cable. This is what is magnetized, creating an attraction between it and the monofilament cable. This ensures that the grapple will attach itself to the cable for a secure hold. This is why the magnet itself does not need to be especially strong to support any amount of weight. It also explains the relative ease with which it can be detached and its seemingly "magical" ability to wrap itself around various objects.

Phixius

Question: The whole point of the ending is that if it was revealed that Dent was a murderer, the criminals that he locked up would be released. Same thing with the fake cop he was threatening. I get all this, but here's the problem: Dent falsely proclaimed that he was Batman in front of the press. Yes, he was lying and the real Batman later showed up, clearing his name, but wouldn't it be just as damaging to Dent's image to show him as a vigilante thug that half of Gotham hates for being responsible for the deaths of innocent people? Surely, at least for a brief time, the locked up criminals would have sufficient grounds for appeal.

Brad

Chosen answer: It might, had the story lasted more than a few hours. Immediately after the Joker's capture, which occurs on the same evening as Dent's press conference, reporters are already asking Dent about working with the Batman, indicating that they're already aware that the story is false. From the public point of view, Dent told a lie in order to set himself up as bait to draw out a dangerous criminal. This can only enhance his reputation, and, given that the story lasted, at most, a few hours, there could be no possibility of any criminals managing to get an appeal in.

Tailkinker

Question: How did Joker rig the hospital and the ferries with explosives? And how did no one notice them in either situation?

Kwjduff

Answer: We aren't shown exactly how the Joker pulls off any of his stunts, it's part of the mystery of his character. In order to pull off the two that you mentioned, the Joker would need meticulous planning and impeccable timing. It seems impossible to pull off either crime without anyone noticing but that's kind of the point. The Joker is apparently prepared for any contingency.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: I know this is bound to be a major point of debate (and I don't mean to imply it's the only reason he did), but with the recent Oscar ceremony, would Heath Ledger still have won if he hadn't died?

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: While there is no real way to know the true answer to your question, in my opinion yes he would. Other actors have been nominated posthumously in the past but not won.

papajim

Question: In the Joker's last scene, he has Batman pinned underneath a bar and asks, "Do you know how I got these scars?" Batman replies "No, but I know how you got these" and he shoots those blades of his into what I thought was the Joker's face. But later, when the Joker is hanging upside down, his face doesn't appear to be any different than usual. Did Batman shoot the blades into another part of the Joker's body, or was I completely oblivious to the Joker's new wounds?

Answer: If you slow down the footage, Batman's blades don't hit Joker's face...but the remote control in his hands to prevent him from blowing up the boats.

Paulie Larson

Question: This has been killing me ever since I saw the movie. How did Harvey and Rachel get tied up in the warehouse? Who did that? Some sites say that it was Wuertz and Rameriz and that they were corrupt. But when Dent confronted both of them they said "I didn't know what they were going to do to you." What do they mean by that?

Answer: It's pretty straightforward - Wuertz and Ramirez were involved in kidnapping Harvey and Rachel and handing them over to the Joker's men, but they weren't aware that the pair would subsequently be tied up and surrounded by explosives; that was done by the Joker's henchmen.

Tailkinker

Question: Could someone please explain the sequence of drilling out the bullet from the wall, shooting the different blocks, and being able to identify the fingerprints on the shattered bullet? Also, where did the fingerprint come from? What was the point of shooting the different blocks in the new Batcave?

Answer: The goal is to get Joker's fingerprint from the bullet in the wall of the apartment. Bullets are usually loaded into a gun's "clip" by hand and people don't usually worry about fingerprints then. The bullet in the wall is shattered, so Bruce needs to scan it and re-construct the fragments to re-construct the fingerprint. To do this, Bruce needs to determine what caliber of bullet was originally used. So he loads that Gattling gun with various caliber of bullets and fires one each into similar bricks to find the one with the hole that closest matches the original. Knowing the caliber used, he is able to analyze the fragmentation of the test bullet and apply that to the Joker bullet to "reconstruct" it.

This scene always seem frivolous to me. The computer knows how to recognize fingerprints. Why wouldn't he just set the computer to reassemble the fragments using each caliber of bullet known, until the fingerprints look right? Or, have it reassemble them and after each run through, attempt to match that fingerprint with someone in the city. This seems like it would be faster than setting up a gattling gun, targets, different caliber ammo, etc. Granted, the technology is all fictional so I guess you could say the only way it worked was the way Bruce did it.

Question: My question involves the scene where Batman is standing on top of the rubble from the explosion mourning the loss of Rachel while the firefighters are seen behind him putting out the residual flames. Is Batman standing inside the building or outside? This may seem obvious, but I recently had a serious debate on this matter. I personally believe he is standing inside the building but would like clarification if possible. Thanks.

Answer: He's on the rubble, so he must be where the building's inside used to be.

Phixius

Question: Anna Ramirez tells Jim Gordon that the Joker card pinned to the fake Batman's body has three sets of DNA on it: Judge Surrillo's, Commissioner Loeb's and Harvey Dent's. So they go and make sure of their safety while ordering Wuertz to find Dent (who is incidentally working for the Joker). But while Dent is speaking to Rachael, Bruce knocks him unconscious and hides him in a broom cupboard. How did Bruce know that The Joker was targeting Dent? He had no contact with Jim Gordon as he was not in the Batsuit. Did he just randomly anticipate the Joker's threat on Dent?

Answer: Bruce was very likely keeping an eye on the security from the building and possibly the police scanners. The benefit he was hosting had all the high profile people attending from Gotham, including Harvey Dent. There was a good chance Joker would crash it, and even listening to police frequency for a few seconds would have given Batman enough notice that something was very wrong and that Harvey was in danger. Ultimately, they don't show how he knew, so there is no way to know for sure besides saying - he is Batman, the world's greatest detective.

oldbaldyone

Answer: They are at a fundraiser for Harvey Dent (who is by the way NOT working for the Joker at all!). It is not a long stretch to assume that when armed terrorists come storming into the fundraiser, that Dent will be a major target for them, if not the prime one. Bruce simply does not take the chance to wait and find out if it's a robbery or an assassination attempt, but gets Dent to safety at once.

Twotall

I think he meant that Wertz was working for the Joker.

As someone else pointed out, you misunderstood the original question. The statement was that Wuertz was working for the joker. You also haven't explained why Bruce knew *anything* about an impending attack... He grabbed Sent before the bad guys entered the penthouse. I guess he must've gotten an alert from a security camera or something.

Question: Every time I watch the movie, I can't work out why Batman tells Gordon that he is going to save Rachel (so that Gordon's unit saves Dent), but lies and saves Dent (Gordon unit are at Dent's place but Batman enters from the back door, leaving Rachel to die). Why would he do that to Rachel as she is his oldest friend?

Answer: Hate to say it, but you've got the situation completely wrong. Bruce thinks he's going to save Rachel, but the Joker lied to him, he reversed the addresses where the two were being held. So Bruce shows up, expecting to find Rachel, but finds Harvey instead and rescues him. Meanwhile, Gordon and his men, who think that they're going after Harvey, arrive at the place where Rachel's being held, but the bomb detonates before they can get into the building to save her.

Tailkinker

Question: In the beginning, Joker said that the goal is to "kill the batman." However, in the jail interrogation scene with Batman, Joker said that he doesn't want to kill him and that he doesn't know what he will do without him. Why did Joker change his plans all of a sudden?

Answer: Originally, the Joker pretended to want to kill the Batman to restore the streets to the mob so he could rip them off. However, as he engaged in challenging Batman, the Joker comes to realise that Batman is the only worthy adversary he has and is simply too much fun to kill.

Question: After the MCU explosion there is a scene where the Joker has his head sticking out of the back seat of a police car and police are chasing him. What is this? He can't drive from the back seat, so what exactly is happening?

swamphawk

Chosen answer: The Joker's henchmen are driving the car.

Brad

Answer: This one always bugged me too. So, I guess the cop cars following were actual Gotham police? Or just additional henchmen? If they were police, how on earth could they have managed to lose the car the joker was in?

The other police cars are being driven by the Joker's henchmen. This will help make it easier for him to flee and it would also be foolish for him to stick his head out the window if he was being pursued by actual cops, as he would be an easy target at that point.

Phaneron

Question: I'd like to know how it's possible that Joker wasn't tied up more efficiently, i.e. in a straitjacket. And WHY, oh WHY was there a policeman inside? It looks really ridiculous in those circumstances.

Answer: What, it's ridiculous to have somebody watching a prisoner, nice and close to make the point that he's being watched, to try to stop any escape attempt before it happened? It didn't work, sure, but that doesn't make doing so stupid. Maybe they should have spent time getting the Joker a strait-jacket, maybe they should have spent time going over the holding room with a fine toothcomb to make sure that there aren't any shards of glass big enough to be used as a weapon, maybe they should have done a lot of things differently, but they've got other priorities at that particular point, most notably getting to two of Gotham City's public officials before they get blown to hell. They felt that Stephens, an experienced officer, would be capable of handling the supposedly unarmed Joker. Being wrong doesn't make them ridiculous.

Tailkinker

Question: In the scene where Reese is asking Lucius Fox for 10 million dollars to keep Batmans ID secret, why did Reese change his mind? What part of Lucius Fox's dialogue made Reese hesitate and change his mind?

Answer: Fox subtly pointed out that Batman/Bruce Wayne is an individual who would not respond well to blackmail. Wayne is extremely rich and powerful, and could crush Reese financially and socially without ever leaving his office, and his Batman side is a violent vigilante who would not hesitate to beat the tar out of criminals, such as blackmailers. Fox simply made Reese realize what a bad idea it would be to anger either of the two personas, and a terrible idea to attack both of them.

Twotall

Question: Why doesn't the movie acknowledge the actress change for Rachel? I mean everyone who watched Batman Begins will be clueless if they didn't know that Katie Holmes chose not to reprise her role. But the movie never explains this and are people just supposed to go along with it?

Arrntv2

Chosen answer: Actors are often changed between movies, occasionally with acknowledgment, more often not. James Bond immediately comes to mind, Jennifer in Back to the Future, Bruce Banner and Rhodey in the Marvel films, Clarice Starling in the Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal...the list goes on. The recasting of Evelyn in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor got a passing nod to the audience (actually, as did the first recasting of Bond), but most of the time audiences are just expected to accept the change and move on.

Jon Sandys

Answer: I'm really not sure how you think a movie can address an actor being replaced. Unless it's something like Deadpool or Wayne's World, where characters speak directly to the audience, there's no real practical way for a movie to openly acknowledge that one of its characters is being played by someone new.

Phaneron

Question: If The Joker wanted to get arrested, instead of engaging in a huge chase with the police where he shoots at them with a machine gun and an RPG, why didn't he just walk into the police station and turn himself in? I know he's theatrical, but he's very lucky he wasn't shot, which would've ruined his plan.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Because the police would have suspected something if he just turned himself in out of the blue, and would have been more vigilant in looking for a trap. As it is, the police are convinced they legitimately captured Joker and derailed his plans with no further need to be on the lookout for unexpected surprises from him.

Phixius

Question: At the beginning of the movie, what does Joker say to the man in the bank? I think it's something like, "I believe whoever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger," but I cant really remember.

Answer: You got it almost exactly right. He says "I believe, whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you... stranger".

Twotall

The Dark Knight mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the interrogation scene, when Batman beats up Joker, Joker's hands are holding Batman's forearms upside down (from underneath). When the frame changes his hands are now on top of Batman's forearms, then it cuts back and his hands are under again. (01:28:00 - 01:29:00)

More mistakes in The Dark Knight

The Joker: I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you... Stranger.

More quotes from The Dark Knight
More trivia for The Dark Knight

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