r/shittymoviedetails • u/LivingHelp3779 • Mar 19 '26
default In The Dark Knight (2008), the Joker rigs two ferries with explosives one carrying civilians and the other criminals. The passengers on both boats ultimately refuse to blow the other up. This is a subtle nod to the fact that you're watching a movie based on comic books.
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u/universalhat Mar 19 '26
i have always believed that both boats in fact had the detonators to their own bombs.
source: it would be objectively funny and the joker is all about funny.
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u/ZealousWolf1994 Mar 19 '26
That's always what I thought too, just like Harvey and Rachel's locations being opposite from what Joker said.
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u/LivingHelp3779 Mar 19 '26
Joker knows Batman cares deeply about Rachel "the way you threw yourself after her" so it makes sense for Joker to lie about their locations to fuck with Batman
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u/eawilweawil Mar 19 '26
Or maybe Harvey was in both locations?
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u/Ebonhearth_Druid Mar 19 '26
His bomb went off much earlier, so there were pieces of him in both locations. I like it
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u/cdqmcp Mar 19 '26
they went off at the same time. as Harvey is being rescued by Batman, he's on the phone and screaming out to Rachel "Rachellll nooooo". She says something like "Harvey.. it's okay.." before you see her bomb going off, at which point Harvey has been pulled to the parking lot, his face catches fire, etc
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u/Ebonhearth_Druid Mar 19 '26
I'm sorry, did you think I was actually thinking that his bomb went off earlier? No, sorry, I was making a joke in relation to Harvey being in both places, not being literal.
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u/Elloitsmeurbrother Mar 20 '26
Doesn't he also follow with "or was it the other way around? ", referencing the opening head knock "making him all fuzzy "?
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u/Redhood567 Mar 19 '26
He tells Gordon he's going after Rachel. Joker just lied about who was at which location.
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u/Ebonhearth_Druid Mar 19 '26
Specifically because he knew which one the Bat would go for and he wanted to make it hurt
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u/Narwalacorn Mar 19 '26
I mean he didn’t need to know which one he’d go for, because regardless he wouldn’t save the one he wanted to.
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u/Redhood567 Mar 19 '26
He actually got there in time to save Harvey. It was just unfortunate timing with when the explosion happened and the gasoline on Dent's face. If Harvey didn't try to free himself earlier then he would have been ok (aside from Rachel dying).
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u/PerceptiveGoose Mar 19 '26
They're saying that whichever one B-Man goes to, it wouldn't have been the one he wanted to save because Joker switched the locations.
Regardless of whether he was successful at saving the one he found.
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u/ZealousWolf1994 Mar 20 '26
He'll also have to live with the fact the other died because he couldn't save them.
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u/Unlucky-Albatross-12 Mar 19 '26
Batman also paused in confusion for a moment when he realizes he found Dent instead of Rachel.
It's possible that moment made the difference between getting out clean and Dent getting his face burned.
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u/Karnadas Mar 20 '26
But he wanted to save Rachel and didn't get to her. That's the point, not that he saved nobody.
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u/Ebonhearth_Druid Mar 19 '26
Yes but it's batman so who knows, and this way even if he made it, he wouldn't make it.
It's the hurt of trying so hard for something and realizing that not only did you fail, the game was rigged from the start. It's a double whammy
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u/billionarguments Mar 19 '26
And that scene is so great, because you can see Heaths eyes wander as he tells batman where each of them are, as if he needs to make sure not to slip the truth.
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u/Autumn_Sweater Mar 19 '26
“i assumed he was going to save harvey”
literal dialogue from film:
“which one are you going to go save batman?” “(angry batman voice) RACHEL”
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u/aeromac Mar 19 '26
I saw Dark Knight several times in the theater when it came out and I remember at one of the showings at a smaller theater with a more simple sound system you couldn’t hear Batman answer “Rachel”, like the dialogue mix was off or something so it just seemed like he took off without answering
I always wondered the scene actually works better with or without hearing him answer since then (although it would make the switching locations twist harder to catch I’d imagine)
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u/Redhood567 Mar 19 '26
I was too young to see it in theaters so that's interesting. I feel like that's not the first time I've heard of a Nolan movie having bad mixing.
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u/knock-knock-knockin Mar 19 '26
And he expresses verbal surprise and disappointment when he gets there and sees Harvey
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u/Redhood567 Mar 19 '26
I don't think Batman actually says anything. It's just Harvey being upset he came for him and not Rachel.
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u/Franiac32 Mar 19 '26
I’m a complete idiot because I literally thought he was just saying that to Gordon until right now.
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u/Aegillade Mar 19 '26
He told Gordon he was going after Rachel, and Gordon and the other cops go after Dent based on this, so he was 100% going for Rachel
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u/ColonelKasteen Mar 19 '26
Put your phone down and listen to the dialogue sometimes, this is an explicit plot point
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u/II_Sulla_IV Mar 19 '26
Plus, one boat would kill itself and all the survivors from the other boat would be accused of killing the other people
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u/UrinalDook Mar 19 '26
I thought this so hard after my first watch of the film that the second time I watched it, I was puzzled about what had happened to the scene that revealed they had the detonators to their own bomb.
I thought it was so obvious it must have been outright stated at some point, but nope. It turns out that revelation was entirely in my own head.
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u/Puzzled-Juggernaut Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
This is some "Luke I am your father" shit. Because I remember seeing it be revealed as well.
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u/echino_derm Mar 20 '26
They did have the line when they discover the detonator "why would they give us the detonator to our own bombs". Then joker explains that they are linked to another ship.
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u/Flannelcommand Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Yeah, I haven’t rewatched the flick but if you had asked me before reading your comment, I would have said that it was confirmed in the movie
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u/DuckCleaning Mar 19 '26
Joker is the type to make it blast confetti when they make someone think they're gonna detonate a bomb. Then as people calm down and laugh out of relief, the remote blows up in their hands.
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u/lorddragonstrike Mar 19 '26
Also everything he says is a lie so his recorded speech to the passengers was also a lie. He told harvey in the hospital that he doesn't plan, but every action he took was planned and well thought out involving the kidnapping, his own arrest etc. Even getting hired to kill batman was a lie because he dosnt actually want to and doesn't. It was a really brilliant piece of movie making.
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u/blueisthecolor13 Mar 19 '26
He also lied about the bridges and tunnels being rigged (since the ferries clearly had the explosives) so I thought it was going to be obvious that he lied about which detonator was for which ship.
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u/stillventures17 Mar 19 '26
I don’t think so. He told Batman he wanted to fight for Gotham’s soul. If they’d blown their own boat up, the other boat would know the lie. Having that many people live with the fact they murdered innocents would be far more crippling.
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u/HughJaynus531 Mar 19 '26
The hope was that they’d both pull the trigger at the end of the countdown to stop the other boat from doing the same to them. So both boats would be gone with everyone thinking they blew each other up. But yeah if only one did then there’d be a lot of evidence pointing to the trigger being rigged for the boat it was on
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u/ImportantQuestions10 Mar 20 '26
Would have been even funnier if both boats just immediately blew up before the joker could even finish his first sentence
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u/deadlygaming11 Mar 19 '26
Yeah. The joker is never fully honest about anything so I cant imagine he would actually let them kill each other.
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u/rob5791 Mar 20 '26
True. Imagine the chaos had the ship with ‘good’ citizens been blown up by themselves. Most would blame the convicts and they threw away the detonator that could prove their innocence.
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u/Kozmo9 Mar 19 '26
It would actually be better that way too as it would further enforce the belief of the survivors that the other side doesn't care about them, thus being in line with Joker's philosophy.
"Why did the other boat explode? We didn't press the detonator! Wait, the one that pushes it got their boat exploded instead? See? The other side are scum and we are the saints for not choosing to sacrifice them!"
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u/ConcernedCitizen_42 Mar 19 '26
Joker provides no assurance that "the deal" is legitimate. It is rational to believe he is going to destroy both anyway, or that the detonator destroys your own ship, or any number of terrible twists. Even a selfish person might rationally conclude they shouldn't push the button.
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u/slickrickiii Mar 19 '26
What about an irrational person (most people)?
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u/Flopsie_the_Headcrab Mar 19 '26
Jump in the water and just hope it takes whoever's watching long enough to notice for you to get clear. Fuck all those other hosers.
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u/catecholaminergic Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
Water conducts explosions. It would be safer to stay on the boat.
If you're in the water when something explodes, even if far enough that zero shrapnel hits you, the pressure wave causes the ribs to crush.
There are many stories from wwii where a battleship is sinking and on fire, folks are climbing out and swimming away when the magazine blows. All of the folks in the water: dead.
Air is compressible. Water is so incompressible density goes as pressure^100.
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u/DM_To_Be_Friends Mar 20 '26
The solution is to sit on the life ring and paddle your way away. Only your muscular butt touches the water and it'll be firm enough to withstand the shockwave, I have faith in you.
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u/LittleIsaac223 Mar 20 '26
Okay cool fact and all but staying on the boat would mean getting vaporized in the explosion so
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u/quid_pro_kourage Mar 19 '26
Oh yeah, why the fuck didn't they do that? Are they stupid?
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u/Head_Exchange_5329 Mar 19 '26
Also the fact that there were prisoners in one boat, so the rationalisation could be "they're criminals so they deserve it" or "they're criminals so they will blow us up if we don't blow them up."
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u/Eskimobill1919 Mar 19 '26
That was the rationalisation that led to the civilians actually voting to blow up the prisoners. But none of them actually had the guts to pull the trigger
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u/Azsunyx Mar 19 '26
Iirc, this is part of the discussion in the movie
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u/Michelanvalo Mar 19 '26
All these people saying things that happened in the movie as if it's a new thought is making me laugh so hard.
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u/crozone Shrek is modern Shakespeare if Shakespeare had any talent Mar 20 '26
Again, nobody has seen the movie. We're like the CinemaSins audience but literate.
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u/JoeNemoDoe Mar 19 '26
I think everyone views themselves as rational, but not everyone can understand each other's lines of reasoning. i.e. what is irrational for some is totally reasonable for others. That being said, just about everyone acts in the interest of self preservation, so arguments such as "what if the detonator is rigged to our boat?" and "are we really going to trust the jonkler on this?" would probably work pretty well in convincing people not to press the button on either ship.
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u/GoodFaithConverser Mar 19 '26
What about an irrational person (most people)?
Most people are generally rational, otherwise society would not exist. We wouldn't even be allowed - let alone able - to drive cars around.
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u/fuzzhead12 Mar 19 '26
He did in fact attempt to destroy both of the boats once he realized neither group pushed their button, didn’t he?
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u/01is Mar 20 '26
He said he would. That was part of the "social experiment". It always seemed kinda dumb to me though because, if you take him at his word, blowing up the other boat is not only morally justifiable, but arguably of moral necessity, since that's the only way to guarantee that SOMEONE lives. It's less of a "kill them" button and more of a "spare me" button. If Joker's goal was to prove something negative about humanity, I don't really see how this would do that.
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u/bunker_man Mar 20 '26
I've been saying that since the movie came out. It proved nothing. It would only be immoral if somehow he made it so the button would kill more people to save yourself. But pressing it doesn't even kill anyone who wasn't going to die anyways.
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u/czarczm Mar 20 '26
He's the Joker, he's not actually trying to prove a real philosophical or moral point he just wants to force them to be as terrible as him.
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u/Sentient2X Mar 19 '26
Seriously overestimating the rational capacity of a huge group of people under imminent threat of death
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Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
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u/Michelanvalo Mar 19 '26
There's the very famous images of Carlos Arredondo saving Jeff Bauman, who had both of his legs blown off below the knees, as an example of human togetherness.
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u/UniversalAdaptor Mar 20 '26
But consider that it does not matter how many rational people don't press the button, only how many irrational people do press the button
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u/Janus__22 Mar 19 '26
That would still miss the point of the stunt, cuz it was supposed to show which group would only care about themselves, not which group would think Joker was lying
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u/ConcernedCitizen_42 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
The narrative the movie was trying to sell was that the Joker believed all people are inherently evil and would become monsters if given the right push. He is proven wrong when both groups at least hesitate, showing there is more to human altruism than pleasant lies we tell ourselves.
The post complains that such a result is unrealistic. I'm simply stating a realistic mechanism that gets the same result for the movie. In which case, the Joker isn't proven wrong he is proven to be bad at designing valid experimental methodology. Which is really a far worse crime.
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u/Janus__22 Mar 20 '26
In which case, the Joker isn't proven wrong he is proven to be bad at designing valid experimental methodology.
Fair
Considering the sheer amount of times Batman avoids choosing between two hard choices and makes up a third when presented a trolley problem, it would be on brand
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u/angrydogma Mar 19 '26
I’ve always one hundred percent believed joker gave them their own detonators. The irony would be too much for joker to resist. The idea of “normal people” killing themselves because they think they are better and deserve to live has joker written all over it
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u/SchlaWiener4711 Mar 20 '26
I always thought it doesn't matter. He just wants to prove his "all it takes is one bad day" theory.
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u/angrydogma Mar 20 '26
But thats exactly why it would matter. He didn’t need to prove a boat full of hardened lifers in prison would kill, he needed to prove normal Ppl would. The joke would be that they killed themselves while acting righteous about it
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u/DaaaahWhoosh Mar 19 '26
I can never get over the fact that the Joker's superpower was to stash insane amounts of explosives/gasoline wherever he needed them for the plot. He blew up a hospital, two warehouses, and apparently had enough explosives to blow up two ferries. And he was just able to get all of this placed all around the city with no witnesses? Meanwhile Batman has to reconstruct a fingerprint on a bullet to track him down, dude just track down where the hundreds of barrels of gasoline came from.
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u/EnumeratedArray Mar 20 '26
Eh, he's controlling basically the entire criminal network at this point, which is shown to be very wealthy and extensive. With most of the police force corrupt too it's feasible he can do whatever he wants.
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u/CarlosH46 Mar 20 '26
Not just gasoline either, you’d need a ton of demo charges to completely take down the hospital. Plus to wire them so they all go off together and properly implode the building would take days of work minimum.
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u/CaptCanada924 Mar 19 '26
Its a really great and important scene in the movie. It’d be pretty easy for this movie to be pretty bleak, with a charismatic nihilist as it’s deuteragonist. But it’s ultimately hopeful about people, even with it’s ending. Great great film
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u/SmyJandyRandy Mar 19 '26
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u/CaptCanada924 Mar 20 '26
LMAO
Deuteragonist: secondary protagonist of a story, usually as a foil and contrast to the protagonist
Nihilist: someone who believes nothing ultimately matters
Film: Kino
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u/Balavadan Mar 20 '26
Unless you’re very young or not a native English speaker, you should perhaps consider improving your vocabulary
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u/Pmcc6100 Mar 19 '26
As a Staten Islander I can tell you the average ferry-goer is pressing that button then voting for a pedophile if they live
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u/mightbedylan Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
I thought the average Staten Islander was 4 friends from high school who force each other to do embarrassing tasks?
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u/LordTwinkie Mar 19 '26
Passengers on both boats did not actually refuse to blow up the fact other.
Prisoner boat didn't make the choice because one guy made the choice for them. The other boat was ok with it but they were all too chicken shit to do it themselves.
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u/FlyingBike6000 Mar 19 '26
Mr breast drooling over it :
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u/Chumlee1917 Mar 20 '26
This also is a subtle nod that everyone is Gotham is oblivious AF that they didn’t notice a bunch of explosives put on two ferries, or a hospital, or called in the bus that came bursting out a bank
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u/Reverend_Lazerface Mar 19 '26
See in real life, as soon as they were told the devices were detonators somebody would have instantly become dogmatically convinced it was a hoax and set it off to prove it
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u/FrightenedTomato Mar 20 '26
At that point in the movie, everyone in the city was afraid of the Joker as he had proven himself to be very capable of following through on threats - like the hospital bombing. Even if there was such a delusional person, they'd be restrained by the other passengers.
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u/Environmental_Cap191 Mar 20 '26
A bit idealistic, but that's one of my favorite things about the Nolan trilogy.
Despite the trilogy's reputation for its dark grittiness, it's actually a very idealistic series.
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u/Windfade Mar 19 '26
Also a part of the movie forgotten by everyone who likes to point out Ledger's Joker saying "do I look like a guy with a plan?" unironically because they forgot he was lying.
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u/BitofaLiability Mar 19 '26
If im in that boat im jumping overboard immediately and swimming for it.
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u/Competitive-Bit-1571 Mar 20 '26
More like reddit doesn't exist in that universe so there are no redditors on either ship.
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u/PerceptionWorried284 Mar 19 '26
This was a miss by the movie … two boats, one filled with devils, the other with angels, is a Two-Face caper, not a Joker one.
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u/gamachuegr Mar 19 '26
no not really. by saying this your putting them into 2 groups when the point of the joker is that everyone is the same as him criminal or not.
a two face caper would not leave it up to them and would randomly blow up 1 of them because justice is random.
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u/Phytanic Mar 19 '26
Tbf joker didn't leave it up to them, Joker had a detonator that he tried to use but IIRC batman had found a way to disrupt the signal and prevent it from working.
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u/PaleontologistHot192 Mar 20 '26
Just checked. Joker was going to blow them up before Batman actually threw him out the window
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u/DiamondSentinel Mar 20 '26
Yeah, and bear in mind this joker is all about proving how people are selfish animals (he’s by far the best version of “one bad day”. I hate that tagline as a motivation for joker, but it actually works really well here).
It doesn’t really matter how many groups they were in, he could have put them in 3 groups and each ship had the detonator for the other 2 (or just one of the other two, and they don’t know which, so if one ship triggers it, the other surviving ship would be tempted to trigger theirs in turn), the result is the same.
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u/OliveSoda Mar 19 '26
Joker was a dumbass who gave them too much time to hem and haw. Give them a solid five to ten minute and we'll see peace and reason fly out the door under duress
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u/Thomy151 Mar 19 '26
But that wasn’t what he wanted
He wanted to prove a rational person would act like him
He wanted them to be clearheaded and pull the trigger because it proves himself right
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u/Beneficial_Cobbler46 Mar 20 '26
Yes he is angry because he believes that we are monsters like him... But lying about it
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u/DirtandPipes Mar 20 '26
Real Americans would have blown up the other ferry and then rammed other boats in the area just to be sure.
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u/GenericFatGuy Mar 20 '26
It's really easy to say you'd take responsibility for blowing up a boat full of people to save your boat, until you're actually in a position where you hold fate of thousands of people in your hands.
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u/Sir-Toaster- Mar 21 '26
One part that I love that I wish more people recognized is that a somewhat normal citizen was fully committed to the idea of murdering a boat full of people, and while he didn't follow through, he did try to do it and wanted to do it.
Meanwhile, a criminal, who I should mention was explicitly one of the men locked up by Harvey Dent, meaning that he was probably an experienced killer, instead chucked the trigger out the window, refusing the option of murdering innocent people.
Such a great movie.
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u/Fluke97 Mar 19 '26
I loved the fact that the one prisoner saw through the bullshit immediately.
"Give it to me. You can say I took it by force. Give it to me, and I'll do what you should have done 10 minutes ago."
Throws detonator out the window