The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight claimed to be a man with no actual plan, but his actions through the whole movie proved the contrary. Batman and his archenemy the Joker have been adapted to the big screen many times, all of them with a different style and tone. Nolan’s vision of these characters (along with many others from Batman’s universe) was very well received by DC fans and casual viewers, as he offered a darker and more realistic version of Gotham City and its heroes and villains, starting in 2005 with Batman Begins, which introduced Christian Bale as the new Caped Crusader.
Batman Begins was a critical and commercial success, and made way for a sequel that arrived three years later: The Dark Knight. Regarded as one of the best superhero movies ever made, The Dark Knight continued exploring this new version of Batman and introduced a more twisted version of the Joker, played by Heath Ledger. Sadly, that was the first and last time viewers enjoyed this portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime, as Ledger passed away months before the movie was released. The trilogy was completed four years later with The Dark Knight Rises, with Bane (Tom Hardy) and Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul as villains.
Although all three movies were very well received by critics and audiences, The Dark Knight stands out for its story and performances, especially that of Ledger. His Joker left many memorable scenes and lines, among those the many origin stories of his scars and the one where he claims to be a man with no plan, which isn’t entirely true.
The Dark Knight: The Joker Definitely Had A Plan
When the Joker visits Harvey Dent at the hospital, he says “do I really look like a guy with a plan?”, adding that he’s “a dog chasing cars” and wouldn’t know what to do if he caught one. However, all of his major actions in the movie don’t look like something a guy with no plan would do – in fact, they are all carefully arranged, and he was shown to be a step ahead of the police and even Batman himself. The Joker’s plan, then, was to create chaos, which sounds easy but requires some planning, so he wasn’t exactly playing it by ear the whole time.
What the Joker wanted was to prove that everyone is selfish and vicious when pushed into extreme situations – his gang of robbers at the beginning of the movie were given instructions to kill each other (and the Joker was, conveniently, saved by the bus driver), he pushed Harvey over the edge when he was already messed up, attempted to make Batman break his one rule, and made the people on the ferries choose between killing or being killed. It’s in that same scene, where he’s detailing his ferries scheme, that he’s seen reading off a piece of paper, proving that he even wrote his speech, so he clearly had it all planned (as well as his escape from prison by planting a bomb inside a prisoner’s stomach).
The Joker is unreliable – look no further than to his ever changing story on how he got his scars – and would say whatever he needs to in order for his plan of chaos to be fulfilled, including saying he wasn’t a man with a plan, which was part of it. He did want to see the world burn, but not by mere improvisation.