The Dark Knight (film)/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The ferry scene is a moment that is even more awesome in its simplicity. In a completely silent room full of hardened criminals, the Huge Black Prisoner walks up to the warden and tells him to give him the detonator, so he will do what the warden can not and should have done ten minutes ago. The warden silently hands him the remote which goes right out of the window and into the river. After almost two hours of Joker's Humans Are the Real Monsters rants without any real refute, it was a very nice "fuck you" to the clown.
    • What happens afterwards? He goes back to his seat and bows his head in prayer and a crowd around him joins him. All without raising his voice above a whisper. BAD. ASS.
    • It's not just a CMOA, it's even a moving, Tear Jerker moment for many.
    • The same scene is nearly repeated on the other boat. One of the civilians declares that he'll do what no one else is willing to do. he walks over, picks up the detonator, and after several tense moments, wherein they realize that the other boat hasn't blown them up yet, he puts the detonator back down with trembling fingers and sits down. There's something about that scene that is so incredibly human.
    • And capping it off is Batman laying the bitter, brutal truth out to the Joker:

"What were you trying to prove? That deep down, everyone is as ugly as you? You're alone!"

      • At that moment, it didn't matter if the Joker lived or died, or if he had succeeded in corrupting Harvey Dent. The Joker lost. And it wasn't Batman or the Gotham Police Department that beat him, but the ordinary people of Gotham.
        • This is because the Joker understands how to deconstruct megalomania (Dent, Batman, the Mob), but ordinary people escape him.
      • To quote poster 'Evan' at Mightygodking's comics blog:

That moment completely justified everything Bruce, Jim, Rachel, and even poor Harvey had ever done. The first film asked whether Gotham could be saved. This film asked if it deserves to be, and it provided a resounding answer: Yes.

  • The Joker gets one in almost every scene he's in, but possibly the best is his redefining Eye Scream for a new generation. "How about a magic trick?"
  • The bank manager gets one as the Joker and his Mooks storm the bank at the beginning of the film. While everyone is screaming in panic, he calmly takes off his glasses and blasts one of the Mooks with a sawed-off shotgun without even getting out of his seat. He then proceeds to walk through the bank, firing at the Joker and even when he's completely at his mercy, he still defies him. Granted he was most likely trained by the Mob, but it's still more Badass than you'd expect from the average person.
  • In the main highway action sequence the Joker, armed with a garbage truck, a highway truck, many henchmen, some shotguns, and a bazooka, is trying to kill Harvey Dent, who's in a fleeing armored car. After the Joker has smashed an entire SWAT team off the highway, Batman finally shows up in the Tumbler rocketing towards the carnage from the opposite side. The garbage truck speeds up to meet the Tumbler, the Tumbler speeds up as well, they both are driving 70 mph at the least, they're about to collide head on...and the Tumbler knocks the many-ton garbage truck ON ITS FUCKING ASS, then turns around, and without a single visible scratch on it goes after the Joker. The Joker is loading up another missile to fire at Dent, Batman turns on the booster and the Tumbler rockets into the air and takes the entire blast of the missle. The Joker was magnificent, but the Tumbler transcends the mortal limit of Badass.
    • In addition, the BatPod gets one moment of awesome when Batman uses its grappling cable to overturn the Joker's semi, and then perform a 180 degree vertical spin against a building wall.
      • My entire theater flipped out when this happened.
      • The moment where the Batpod emerges from the destroyed Tumbler drew a grin and a "Cool!" from my dad. I dare you to disagree.
  • One word: Batpod. Its intro scene is tragic (the Tumbler destroying itself after it has been wrecked to hell) then becomes purely awesome when the Batpod emerges and goes on to take down the Joker in an awesome way.
    • In this corner, an 18-wheel truck driven by a bat-shit crazy clown and his goons, armed with a recycled soviet RPG-7, who's already managed to dump one SWAT truck in the river and has taken down a SWAT helicopter. And in this corner, the bat-pod, an iddy-biddy motorcycle detached from the destroyed Batmobile. Who wins? The bat-pod; as it flips the 18-freakin'-wheeler on its back!!. Seriously, you couldn't hear the movie for a full 10 minutes because people went coconuts cheering.
    • Even more awesome: that scene was executed in real life exactly how you see it on screen. No CGI. No miniatures.
      • In the words of Cracked.com: "Because that's how Batman would do it."
  • James Gordon faking his own death to draw out the Joker and then saving Batman when the Joker had him pinned.
    • "We've got you, you son of a bitch." My audience burst into applause after that.
    • My mother, who went and saw the movie with me, shot up both hands in the air and cheered. Which just completely rocked.
    • And then when he goes to see his son afterward, both a Moment of Awesome and a Heartwarming Moments:

Son: Did Batman save you, daddy?
Gordon: Actually, this time...I saved him. *both smile*

  • Harvey Dent's first scene, where he's questioning a witness. The witness (a hired gun) pulls out a pistol and aims at Harvey, the gun jams, and Harvey responds by quickly grabbing the gun and giving him a right cross. And then calmly tells the man who hired the hitman - who is on trial - that he really should have bought an American gun instead of a Chinese one. And then protesting when the judge orders the man taken away... because he hasn't finished his cross-examination. Appropriately, the crowd cheers.

Harvey Dent: Carbon fiber. .28 Caliber, made in China. If you want to kill a public servant, Mr. Maroni, I recommend you buy American.

  • Joker daring Batman to kill him by shooting at him and everything around him with a machine gun while the hero is barreling down on him with a motorcycle.
  • Let's be honest. This is pretty much a Crowning Movie Of Awesome. It has near-universal acclaim from both the fans and movie critics (specifically a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes), Heath Ledger's Joker won an Oscar, and the Academy was widely denounced for not even nominating the movie for Best Picture.
    • And the Academy wasn't just denounced by fans, but by film critics as well.
  • Posthumously given to Heath Ledger, every time he said a line in his Joker voice. What a role to be remembered by.
    • I felt that in terms of his performance, Heath Ledger's Moment of Awesome comes from his laugh. It's so completely, chillingly insane (starting off as a low, rasping giggle, before bursting out in insane laughter) that it truly captures the essence of the Joker.
      • It's also a Shout-Out. It's the same laugh as Cesar Romero's version of the Joker.
    • Also in the eyes. Heath Ledger's eyes without makeup appear very small. With the Joker makeup and surrounded by black area they pop out more.
    • "Ooh, very poor choice of words."
    • "I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you...stranger."
      • Made so much more chilling by the very subtle alteration on Ledger's voice just as he says that last word, giving it an understated Evil Sounds Deep effect.
    • "How 'bout a magic trick? I'm going to make this pencil disappear.....TA-DA! It's gone!"
    • "Why... so... serious?"
    • "I just wanted my phone call."
    • "Why don't you give me a call? Here's my card."
    • "Why don't we cut you up into little pieces and feed you to your pooches? And then we'll see how loyal a hungry dog really is."
    • Burning $68 million to prove a point: that there is no point. He just... does things.
      • For me, it's the fact that Lau is on the pile of money when the Joker burns it. "I'm only burning my half."
    • "Let's not blow... this out of proportion". Primarily due to Heath Ledger's astounding feat of somehow making such an Incredibly Lame Pun sound genuinely threatening.
    • After Batman doesn't hit him with the Batpod, very quickly, he says "fuck." Blink and you'd miss it.
    • The Joker goes in nurse drag to push Harvey Dent off the edge before blowing a hospital to smithereens as he walks out. And when only half the bombs go off, he smacks the detonator until the other half finally goes and obliterates the rest of the hospital.
      • I sat there as the entire audience nervously laughed at this scene. We really didn't want to laugh at him doing horrible things. The performance was just so magnificent. Mr. Joker you can kill me any time because you do it so well.
      • I come from redneck country. In my showing, all the rednecks started yelling at Harvey Dent to fire the gun. They got seriously scary with the passion in their cries of "SHOOT HIM!" Yes, that's right, ladies and gentleman, the Joker is awesomely evil enough to incite a redneck riot - in Real Life.
      • If the audience isn't laughing every single second the Joker's on screen/page, no matter what the adaption or medium, then they're doing it so very, very wrong. That's the creepy thing about him... he makes you laugh, no matter what he does. The Joker could be massacring baby orphans, and it should still be funny.
      • The really hilarious part was how the scene totally subverted the Unflinching Walk; the Joker starts by walking away with all the explosions going off, but then stops, angrily fiddles with his detonator, and then, when the rest of the bombs blow, he jerks in surprise and then runs away quickly.
        • Best part of that? The entire thing was improvised by Heath Ledger, the explosions really did screw up while filming and he wasn't sure what to do.
    • Actually, Joker gets one right at the start when a gang of thugs in clown masks rob a mob bank. They succeed, but each gang member has orders to kill a member after they do their part. When there's only two left, Clown 1 points his gun to Clown 2 and says: "Let me guess, he told you to kill me." Clown 2 responds: "No, no I was supposed to kill the bus driver." As soon as Clown 1 finishes asking what bus driver, a school bus bursts through the wall to kill him. Then the remaining clown kills the driver as he said he would and takes off his mask to reveal that he actually is the Joker himself, followed by escaping with the loot in the bus to a crowd of school buses. It wasn't the best of his moments of awesome but it was the first and definitely set the tone of the movie.
    • Joker is blasting away at an armoured car with increasingly larger guns. One of the officers inside remarks that he'll need something a lot bigger than that. Joker then pulls out a rocket launcher.
    • A really subtle but totally awesome Moment of Awesome? Obstructing the freeway with a burning fire truck. Irony, thy name is Joker.
    • Similarly, the Harvey Dent campaign badge on his nurse's uniform. (I only noticed it on the third viewing.)
    • For me, it's following Batman slamming his head into a table by lecturing him that it will only lessen any other pain he tries to inflict. Batman immediately gives a bone-crushing punch to the Joker's hand on the table, only for him to not even flinch and say "See?"
      • Made all the more impressive when you consider that Heath Ledger told Christian Bale to actually beat him up.
    • When the mobster asks him if he thought he could just take their money, and he just says "yeah". So casually awesome.
    • One moment that really does, without question, convince any viewer that the Joker is truly insane? He gives Harvey his pistol, has him point it at his head, and lets Harvey flip his coin to choose whether he lives or dies. In other words, the Joker was perfectly willing to die to prove his point and ruin Harvey. And he laughs while doing this.
      • But if Harvey had killed him, it would have accomplished his goal either way: to ruin Gotham's White Knight.
        • Which just goes to prove that the Joker's claim to not have a plan might not have been so true after all...
    • When he tries to trick the cop in the interrogation room into trying to beat the shit out of him so he can escape, and the cop basically says he's not going to fall for his bullshit... and then he pisses the cop off enough to convince him to try and beat the shit out of him anyway.
    • In a movie full of epic mind-blowing Moments of Awesome one must appreciate the subtlety of the sign on The Joker's 18-wheeler. Only a truly disturbed mind would realize what a massive change a single spray-painted 'S' makes when attached to the phrase 'Laughter is the best medicine.'
  • "Seven hundred and twelve counts of extortion, eight hundred and forty-nine counts of racketeering, two hundred and forty-six counts of fraud, eighty-seven counts of conspiracy to murder, five hundred and twenty-seven counts of obstruction of justice. How do the defendants plead?" A combined Moment of Awesome for the judge, Harvey, and the Gotham PD.
  • Batman interrogating Maroni. Holding Maroni over a railing only a few stories up, Maroni laughs that dropping him from that height would not kill him. Batman's response? "I'm counting on that," and drops him.
  • Batman's entrance in the Joker interrogation scene is a Moment of Awesome, just for being so very much a Batman-like thing to do.
  • All of Michael Caine's Alfred badass moments appear to center around fire or heat, from the above-mentioned ones, to his "Some men just want to watch the world burn" to "Tell her to apply her own bloody sun-tan lotion!" to "We burned the forest down."
  • The entirety of the Hong Kong sequence, but especially how Batman gets Lau away from the authorities.
  • :Two-Face has one when confronting one of Gordon's cops, Wuertz.

Weurtz: Dent...Jesus, I-I thought you was dead!
Two-Face: "Half." He has a VERY frightening look as he says it, and just to hit the point home he drinks some liquor and some of it leaks from his scarred face. Talk about evoking the power of Two-Face in a single word.

    • Two-Face gets one confronting Maroni:

Two-Face: You're a lucky man. But he isn't.
Maroni: Who?
Two-Face: {{[spoiler|fastens seatbelt}}] "Your driver." Bang.

  • Lucius Fox. "Let me get this straight. You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands... and your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck." Absolutely owned, just like that.
    • Just look at Morgan Freeman's face before he delivers the line, while the sleaze ball's making his demands. You can see Lucius preparing to verbally bitch slap him a full half minute before he even speaks. Awesome.
    • What, is he dense? Is he retarded or something?
  • Lucius Fox's massive sonar grid used to track the Joker.
    • It's echolocation. He is BATman after all.
    • Probably even better is when Lucius calls him out on weaponizing his invention. Batman tells him once they're done, he can self-destruct it. Which is enough to convince Lucius to help him and keep the trust between the two.
  • The fact that both The Dark Knight and Batman Forever had moments where Batman's eyes become white (like they are in the cartoons and comics) it's really, really awesome.
  • Batman, when he is being pinned down by the knife-wielding Joker on the top of an unfinished skyscraper. When the Joker asks if he knows how he (the Joker) got his scars (a running theme through the movie), Batman calmly replies, "No. But I know how you got these." before shooting the blades in his gauntlet into the Joker, knocking him off the building.
    • And before that, Batman manages to take on both the Joker's disguised goons and the Gotham PD SWAT team at the same time and defeat both of them.
    • Earlier in the movie at the dinner party when Joker threatening Rachel.

Joker: You got a lot of fight in you. I like that.
Batman: Then you're gonna love me! (PUNCH)

  • To me, the Joker's true Crowning Moment of Awesome comes in his last appearance when he is falling to his apparent death, and is laughing hysterically all the way down, believing that Batman killing him has proven him right about how he would need to break his one rule meaning that the Joker wins. When Batman then saves him, he then laughs all the harder overjoyed at having a foe who is truly incorruptible, who he can fight forever. He then mocks Batman with how he was able to corrupt Harvey Dent, the "true soul of Gotham". Really shows that the Joker is a no-win situation kind of guy.
  • Rachel kneeing the freaking Joker in the balls. If she doesn't come back in the next movie, I'm gonna be pissed.
    • She's kinda dead, not gonna happen.
  • Batman turning himself into a wanted fugitive who the Gotham PD will be forced to catch, all to completely defy the Joker and defend Harvey's memory. And it's accompanied by a montage and a speech which will forever be among the most awesome scenes in the Nolanverse for me:

Sometimes... the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes... people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

  • Bruce Wayne (not Batman, Bruce Wayne) casually taking out one of Joker's mooks on his way to his hideout by taking his shotgun, knocking the guy out, then disassembling the gun and lackadaisically discarding it, all without breaking stride.
    • Another point where Bruce Wayne gets a rare moment of badassery as Bruce Wayne is when he offers to throw a fund raiser for Harvey Dent's upcoming reelection campaign and when Dent tries to downplay it Bruce quietly explains "No you don't understand. One fund raiser with my pals, and you'll never need another cent." In that moment he might not be a martial arts master, flawless detective, loaded to the gills with a bunch of exotic weapons... but proves that a multi-millionaire can be a pretty strong force for good as well.
  • The final scene where, as Batman rides away running from the police, Gordon beautifully explains to his son AND the audience why Batman is such a great hero. It emphasizes how Badass the character is but also how selfless he is. It's a perfect way to end one of the greatest comic adaptations of all time.

He's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now, so we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero, he's a silent guardian, a watchful protecter, the dark knight.

  • The performance by Heath Ledger has been mentioned but it extends beyond that. Let's be honest, NOBODY thought this would work. Nobody expected Ledger to deliver anything even half as good as what we got. The casting choice raised so many eyebrows due to just how strange and unusual it was. Then Ledger shocked everyone by giving not only the best performance in the series, but arguably the greatest performance in the history of comic book movies. He. Is. The Joker.
  • No love for Senator Patrick Leahy's cameo? It's awesome in several ways. First, it's the third time the Senator (who is a huge Batman fan) has cameoed in a Batman production (previously in the animated series and Batman and Robin) and secondly, his cameo in this film has his character standing up to The Joker and living to tell the tale. Pretty badass for a bit part.


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