Passengers’ Choice
Baru, originally uploaded by saffysafina.
I’m not into motorcycles, but if they threw in monster truck wheels, the instant direction-changing thingy, and Christian Bale, I’d get one.
Watched The Dark Knight with Ernie, and then Otsu. Both loved it and swore to see it again, but they had the same beef. The ferry sequence, the passengers’ choice—they found it unbelievable. (Otsu’s other beef: They took DNA and fingerprints but no one thought to wipe off the Joker’s make-up so they could identify him? Also I must apologize on behalf of Ernie, who belatedly cried, “Omigod, he’s Two-Face!” at the screening. He’s read all the Batman comics, he just had a long day.)
What do you think would be the most realistic outcome of the ferry dilemma? Why? (Assume that the ferries are not Sulpicio Lines and choice is possible.) What does this say about humans? Obviously you have to have seen the movie to know what I’m talking about. Post your scenario in Comments (no length requirements). The best three answers (to be chosen by Ernie, Otsu and myself), get Batman T-shirts, to be mailed to a Philippine address.
Winners will be announced on Tuesday afternoon.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 19th, 2008 at 12:11
Wow, just saw the movie today and it very well damned lived up to all the hype.
I’m glad you mentioned the ferry dillemma as it was one of my favorite scenes in the film. When one of the prisoner’s stood up, took the detonator from the security officer’s hand and threw it off the boat, I honestly almost cried – it really got me by the heart. Yeah, yeah I know this reeks of schmaltziness on my part but I like the occasional genuine life affirmation in my movies.
Did I think the outcome was realistic? Honestly, I was expecting total chaos
from both ships, people neck in neck trying to wrestle the detonators away from the officers and Nolan just bringing up all the misanthrophy building up to this point in the film to a climax. But that was my movie logic doing the thinking – I’m just used to a Grand Guignol ending to this sort of ordeal in films. Instead, I think how the scene actually played out was actually better and more realistic. It showed people fearful out of their minds who seriously contemplate about putting their survival over the other, but very few would really have the guts, mental steadfastness, or I would like to think, the utter heartlessness to make the decision and carry the burden for pushing the “button”. Plus, I think there was also the very unique circumstances in that situation that made people indecisive inspite pending doom and all – too many unknown factors make it a less than palpablle situation to deal with…okay maybe describing a roomful of explosives as “less tha palpable” is a little off.
Still, the movie was awesome enough for me to just accept the everything it presented to me while I was watching. In the end, that’s what counts.
July 19th, 2008 at 20:15
Whoah! Just saw the movie!! It’s like being punched in the gut! But in a good way (if such thing exists)?! Now I have to get to the point.
I’m still a bit shell shocked so to answer this one I had pictured myself as one of the passengers in the ferry (very old and tricky method). I was frozen with indecision. See, I didn’t know those people but I know myself. I know there would literally be bazillion of stuff that would go through mind. My husband’s knee jerk reaction was — “Press-the-button-and-blow-up-the-other-boat!!!â€. (He is not a bad person. He doesn’t even get the urge to strangle me in my most horrific hormonal days.) The point he’s trying to make is that people should be scrambling, mobbing whomever it is that’s holding the detonator, fighting to save their lives. That should be what the real life ‘must be’. Right? Wrong? Who can really tell? I am no expert but in my so-so years of existence I have come to realize that “real†life is more absurd what we expect the real life would be. When things are actually happening even though how impossibly coincidental they may seem or how strangely ironic they are, we ogle our eyes but eventually come to accept them as the real here-and-now. Endless scenarios teach us that life is more complicated than what we believe we already know of it.
Two separate ferries, two different society classes. Same instinct. Not the most acceptable resolution to some but hey someone had to make a stand. Is there something else that might have been better? Yes of course. Do away with the big scary prisoner guy. Do away with the ugly extras. Stop with the cheesiness. Whoah! Slap me. I wouldn’t have it any other way in respect to brains behind this simply mesmerising movie. That’s the most real that it can get in films or otherwise.
July 19th, 2008 at 21:54
Realistically speaking, that quandary was answered by a very famous philosopher called Plato. Although I doubt if they already had crime fighters dressed in spandex before, the moral of the story is pretty much still the same.
In Plato’s The Republic, he narrates a story narrated by one of the characters in the book, titled The Ring of Gyges. Without putting the readers of this blog in a self-induced comatose, a ring is discovered to possess magical powers. If it’s turned inward, the wearer becomes invisible (sounds familiar?). Turning it outward will make him visible again. He then asks what will stop a good man from doing anything he wishes once he wears the ring. Nothing.
And this is his point: those people who practice justice do so not because they genuinely want to, or believe that justice brings something good, but because they DON’T have the power to be unjust. In the end, the actions of the goody-goody person would just be the same as the actions of a common criminal. Ask yourself, if you were invisible, what would you do? Build a GK house?
Going back to the two ferries, the innocent civilians would have flipped the detonator just as fast as the criminals in the ugly neon orange suits. It would simply matter on who had the dexterity to grab the detonator first.
July 19th, 2008 at 22:37
Given that survival is the most primal of human instincts (and all other living things for that matter), I would have realistically expected the passengers to throw all reason and logic overboard and not even think twice about pulling the trigger. Knowing the Joker though, he would have probably rigged it such that whoever did the deed would blow up their own boat instead.
On another note, if that were to have happened, the movie would have been as demented as the Joker himself.
July 20th, 2008 at 01:48
My take is that the movie thinks too highly of the human race.
If a 21st century society is thrust in a lawless, left-to-fend-for-themselves-with-no-one-else-to-blame situation, the society will probably collectively choose not to cause harm to anyone else unless in self-defense, which assumes that the opposing party will unprecedently attack. Normally, society elects a government among them to assess and decide whether they are/will be under attack but in the movie, there is none. Intuitively, if two societies are known to not attack unless provoked, they are at peace. So says John Locke.
But for me, the criminal ferry is the clincher – it underscores the propensity of human beings to discriminate when factual assessment is unavailable or, in their opinion, unreasonable. The civilian ferry could assume that criminals, being inherently evil, will attack, therefore they should defend themsevles by attacking. On the other hand, the criminals could assume that the civilians, thinking themselves more worthy of survival, will attack, therefore they should defend themselves by attacking. That’s where the movie goes out on a limb and assumes the best of the human race. It means that centuries of civilization have forced us to develop a functioning conscience when every night, the news coverage begs to differ.
I understand how no one wants to be responsible for pressing the button and living with the guilt of being a selfish dud, but I think the chances that there weren’t any Republicans on the civilian ferry are rather slim.
What it says about human beings is, to achieve peace, we have to become Asimov’s robots.
BUT I WILL WATCH THE DARK KNIGHT AGAIN. Because it is AWESOME.
July 20th, 2008 at 13:39
The Two Ferry scene and its outcome is inevitable if you know anything about story telling. If they exploded one another, there’s nothing for the director and script writer to use to wrap up the movie. If they exploded, the movie will go on and on in a melee of insane violence and heroic effort to curb that violence. Batman can’t use or even threaten to use a nuclear weapons against the Joker. The director isn’t so much making a point about peace in times of terror as he is being forced to show people on the two ferries choosing Hope by the simple contingency of story telling and the fact that he has to end the movie after 2 hours.
It may never happen in real life but the plot makes it necessary. It’s similar in function to comic relief, which this movie still uses with relish even with the gritty atmosphere.
The real question: should the academy hand it the Oscars this early?
July 20th, 2008 at 15:42
What do you think would be the most realistic outcome of the ferry dilemma? Why?
no contest: the convicts would’ve lunged at the detonator in a fraction of a second after the great joker gave the instructions. it’s simple and stupid therefore, most realistic outcome possible. these are convicts in Gotham City, not the kind that dances in groups and post their performances up in you tube. these are the ones trained by the Joker, they breathe anarchy. They live in a city where we moviegoers and readers get slapped by the very definition of the word criminal. even the ones that dance in you tube would’ve jumped in the water given that opportunity; and given that these criminals are made in Gotham with amplified vileness and irrationality doesn’t change the premise.
i’ll tell you what’s next after the convicts blow up the civilians ferry: the convicts will have been freed, Gotham will continue to live up to the falling city in the comic and we will be given a sneak-peek to the sequel. not that we’ll screech with surprise. the million dollar question is: Who’s gonna be Heath’s successor???
July 21st, 2008 at 08:58
The Joker says the ferry dilemma was a “social experiment”. While much scrambling is thought out courtesy of the detonator, I’d like to see the “ordinary” law-abiding citizens fight their heads off even during the vote. I’d like to see fits chaos and paranoia during the votation. By considering the “vote”, we may be offered a glimpse of democracy, of trying to put things in order, of trying to be “decent men in indecent times”. A futile attempt, because a minute before the clock strikes 12, these ordinary, law-abiding citizens would have caved in to paranoia and detonate the prisoners’ ferry, while the other detonator was earlier thrown off. I’d like to see it, even just as epilogue to Joker’s “And here we go”. But then that would require a plot permutation. Oh well.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:06
It all depends on who are the ferry passengers.
Japanese: They won’t blow each other up. Instead, they’ll figure out a way to electronically jam the Joker’s signal.
Australians: They’ll simply jump ship. All of them know how to swim, so why bother?
Russians: Having no sense of humor, they won’t get the joke nor the dilemma so they’ll die by the Joker’s hand.
Indians: They’ll break into a song and dance routine first before deciding what to do.
Chinese: They’re a notch better than the Australians. Having Kung Fu powers, they’ll simply walk on water.
Germans: They’ll re-engineer ferries into powerboats and reach land before they all blow up.
Mexicans: There’d be no Mexicans in that ferry. Mexicans in Gotham would have probably built their own rafts to cross to the other side.
Americans: Just like in the movie. They put it to a vote.
Filipinos: We’ll leave it up to Batman to save us and blame him if we all die.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:50
i was just telling my friends that if it were filipinos on that boat, the captain or whoever is in charge would have done the voting via the loudest applause and cheer. (sinong gusto pindutin ang button? palakpak ng malakas) anyway, i do think the scene was unrealistic (just as unrealistic as batman’s voice, which i found really funny). i think somebody would have pushed the button just seconds after the joker’s instruction. anyway (again), i loooove the movie! i feel that it has transcended the whole “superhero” film ek and became a solid action drama.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:14
Realistic outcome, eh? Since Im not in jail, and so not on the ‘prison boat’, Im going to assume Im on the ‘civilian’ boat. I dont know about the others with me on the boat, but I would get the hell out of there. Jump off the boat and swim, yelling, “Follow me to freedom!!”, or more likely, “Adios, amigos!” ;-) There would then be a panic in the civilian boat as other passengers jump off, too. Joker sees what’s happening and blows the ‘civilian’ boat up before everybody gets a chance to escape which renders the detonator on the prison boat useless. Prisoners then jump off too, along with their guards, before Joker blows away their boat. Casualties everywhere, both from the blast and from panic-induced drowning, but many escape. Me, being the first off the boat, and being a fairly good swimmer, make it to shore and am home just in time for Letterman.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:24
Two things. One: In the movie, The Joker announces as part of his “instructions” that if anyone attempts to jump off the ferry, he will blow up the ferry. Two: Russians are hilarious. Their humor is so deadpan and ironic, often you can not tell if they are being funny.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:35
Haha. Serves me right for not seeing the movie first (which also means I should stop reading blog posts about it. Apparently, ‘spoiler warning’ is an alien concept to a lot of them).
July 21st, 2008 at 12:38
Initially, I thought the huge chaos with everyone trying to get the trigger would end up with both ferries exploding because the triggers were accidentally pressed. But charging it to plain stupidity just won’t cut it.
First: The civilians. It was believable that the civilians couldn’t find the courage to press the trigger and save their lives. Even if it is every man for himself already, they cannot deny the fact that all of them, not only the one who presses the trigger, will be haunted by their guilt forever.
I imagined what was going on inside the civilians head… okay let’s press the trigger. We get to live. But every single day that we live is a slow death inside. No matter how you look at it, it’s murder. It’s not even self defense because the people in the other ferry are not the enemy. They may be criminals but they are not the ones who have placed you in that position.
What I found unbelievable is that the convicts were the calmer crowd. If these people were really the criminals of Gotham City, I think they would have been more maniacal and soulless, given the history of crime in Gotham. And although I found the whole “I will do what you should have done ten minutes ago†thing very, for lack of a better word, wow, it’s just too unrealistic.
The realistic ending for me would be the criminals blowing up the civilians. No questions asked. I even thought that after they blow up the civilians, they would jump off the ferries and start killing people or robbing stores. Just major chaos.
I think it all boiled down to “Why haven’t they blown us up yet?†I think that no one will have the courage to press the trigger unless the other one presses first. Revenge can give you courage to do things you never imagined you could do.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:41
Oh another thing. My friend said that it was a trick question because if one ferry pressed the trigger and blew the other one, the impact of the explosion would have affected their own ferry and exploded as well.
July 21st, 2008 at 16:53
first off…i beg to differ on some people’s opinion that the scene between the guard and the prisoner who threw the detonator was “unrealistic”. i think that’s actually the MOST realistic part as it explores the complexity of human nature. we are quick to judge people based on past actions or the image that we see…but we forget how complex humans are and that we cannot judge them based on what we see alone. how often have we seen people do things that are not expected of them? and it works both ways: “good” people (in our eyes) doing bad things, and “bad” people doing good things. e.g. you have these politicians/businessmen who, on first look, looks decent, are very smart, so eloquent, well-educated, came from good and well-off families, but what do they do behind closed doors? they have the guts and the stomach to order their “competitions” and their families kidnapped, or worse killed! and yet, when you meet them in real life, and you shake their hands and you talk to them…you could never think in your wildest dreams that these people are no different than common murderers. and then there are those people like the prisoner in the ferry.
anyway, going back to the question…so what would be the most realistic ending? i honestly don’t know…coz as i mentioned in my quite lengthy post above, human nature is so complex that humans will never fail to surprise you on how they would react in certain situations and what they are capable of doing. surprise in the sense that some could do EXTREMELY BAD THINGS…while some can do EXTREMELY GOOD THINGS…and to think that we are all of the same species…AMAZING! i think humans go so deep but we don’t get to control and access this part of our humanity in our ordinary lives…it takes extraordinary situation for this part of us to awaken and this causes the surprise, not only on others, but even on ourselves.
personally, i would like the ending to go like this: the ordinary citizens blow up the prisoners’ ferry…but they can’t take the guilt after, so they commit suicide and blow themselves up as well…and then Joker, so ecstatic that his plan — to make people crazy and do unthinkable things by putting them in an impossible situation — has worked, finally reveals who he (or she) really is…
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Surprise!
July 21st, 2008 at 17:21
The movie’s answer to the social experiment plays with humanity’s increasingly cynical nature – which is perfectly illustrated by the comments above. Just like Gotham’s denizens, most of us are already hardened and calloused by rampant crime and corruption around us giving us an utter lack of faith on the goodness of humanity.
Cynicism aside, here’s how I think the social experiment would play out in real life:
On the civilian boat – some of the passengers will attempt to jump ship and may even succeed, given that the got busy that Joker during the last minutes before midnight. There will be panic and chaos just before the clock strikes 12. One of the passengers whose boyfriend is on the prison ferry will attempt to protect the bomb remote from the mob. He tried to throwing it to the river but the window was blocked. So he tried to cover the switch with his body. Unfortunately, when the mobs jumped on him, he accidentally pressed the trigger with his belly.
On the prison boat – the prisoners were eerily calm. They have accepted their damnation and most of them believes that they deserve to be blown up anyway. Or at least most of them do, being reformed and all. Those that didn’t got intimidated by Mr. Tiny anyways. Then came the BOOM! (before Mr. Tiny could throw the detonator). Mr. Tiny, holding on his last breath and strength, pressed the remote detonator for the civilians’ ferry, believing that he got betrayed by his trust on humanity.
Joker saw what happened and laughed triumphantly. He mocked Batman, citing how hopeless his plight to restore peace in Gotham, etc. etc… The Bat got really mad, he lost all of his faith in humanity. To cut things short, he gained upper hand and crushed the Joker’s throat, breaking his one rule. Realizing what he did, he ran away, disappearing into the darkness of the night.
Oh yeah, Dent killed one of Gordon’s kids and his wife using his coin to decide who’s gonna die. He got away, leaving Gordon in a catatonic state. Later, Gordon was admitted to Arkham Asylum.
fin.
July 21st, 2008 at 17:25
If we, however, apply the prisoner’s dilemma in this situation, since there’s not much incentive in no blowing up the other party, then both ferries will blow each other up. It’s just matter who has the fastest finger on the trigger.
July 21st, 2008 at 19:13
“Two: Russians are hilarious. Their humor is so deadpan and ironic, often you can not tell if they are being funny.”
Even if they knew little English, they are funny and also get your humor quick. Filipinos don’t understand real humor at all. Humor to us is utilitarian: acts as a brief respite from toil and tragedy.
July 22nd, 2008 at 02:26
I believe in Joker so much, I’d say the civilians would have blown up the prisoner’s boat to pieces before you can even say ka-pow. It is, what it is. The prisoners were dispensable, the civilians not because they’re good and normal. The point is,as what have Joker told Harvey Dent in the movi, “It’s all… part of the plan”.
July 22nd, 2008 at 07:39
Hm
Nobody would be pushing the buttons, as they’d be…
a) spending the whole time fighting over who gets to push
b) fighting over the who cheated on the tallies
c) too riled up to have noticed there’s explosives and a trigger on board, maybe they’re fighting over who stepped on a foot, or who made that horrible horrible burrito fart
The fighting will be done in amazing Krav Marva action with lots of quick cuts and fancy editing.
July 22nd, 2008 at 09:16
I have a few concerns with the reality of the situation, but from a slightly different perspective to that which has been explored hereinbefore. For example, on the prisoner ferry, why were the guards so stupid as to take the detonator into a crowd of DANGEROUS, UNSHACKLED PRISONERS WHO ARE HARDENED ENOUGH NOT TO BE SCARED OF A FEW GUARDS WITH GUNS? We know that these ferries have a number of levels and a bridge that is separate from the rest of the ship. But no, the prison administrator, the guards and the crew choose to go under decks, down the stairs and into the orange sea of Gotham’s most dangerous scum with a device that they then try to dissuade them from using. It doesn’t make sense. Or does it? Since the other worthy denizens of this site have indulged in ‘nice little speculations of philosophy’ (to steal Ben Jonson’s phrase (Woohoo! My first scholarly name drop for this post! I’m on the board! :p )), I will offer one too: the prison guards, despite their day jobs brutalising prisoners, are really just civilians. Even so, they have every wish to survive to fight another day (even though that might not be the most realistic hope when one has made a career in the Gotham penal system). Therefore, they brought the button down out of a subconscious urge to put it in the grasp of those with enough fortitude to (they thought) kill to save themselves.
Other comments have already exhausted all the really cool philosophers like Plato, Locke, et al., so I beg to be allowed to invoke Japanese popular culture. (By the way, I love the breakdown by Cacs of how different nationalities might approach the challenge. As has been pointed out, though, if anyone left the boat, everyone would be blown up. Also, I am an Australian, and can vouch for the fact that there are Aussies who are uncoordinated, asthmatic, unathletic and who swim like Steve Urkel dances. Of these I am foremost.) Battle Royale (the book is far superior to the film) features a similar situation, where students from one junior high school class are put on an island, are given weapons, and are forced to murder each other. Oh, and they are all wearing explosive collars that will blow them all up if no-one dies for a certain period of time. The ‘game’ lasts three days; if at the end of that time more than one person is alive, all the survivors’ collars will be blown up. The incentive to play the game is therefore strong. To add to this is the pressure of knowing that there are some people who will play the game out of fear, paranoia, mental breakdown, a desire to settle old scores, or good old natural malevolence. Everyone is therefore forced into the game, either as cannon fodder, or as a killer. In the book, it only takes one loose cannon to spark the whole thing off. After that, any tentative trust that may have existed is shattered. Each individual has to make his or her own decisions based on their own prejudices, past experiences, psychology and attitude to the situation. And sometimes, you get people who really do act on the whims of chance. There is a character called Kazuo who presents shades of Two-Face. He is super-intelligent but he does not feel any emotions; hence, he flips a coin to decide whether or not he will play the game. He got bad heads and went on a deadly rampage.
The strength of this scene in the movie, however, is that it does not rely on individual loose cannons gradually upsetting the order, but on a sort of consensus on each boat that is governed by the ‘general will’, as articulated by Rousseau. In their own ways, the passengers on each boat follow a form of social contract. In one, that contract is formulated around democratic principles, hence the vote and the reluctance of any one member to assume a dictatorial position by pushing the button on his own account. On the other boat, the general will is expressed in a more primal mentality, where the fiercest person assumes the mantle of leader and makes the decision that will still cast responsibility on all of the boat’s passengers. The big, scary guy is the acknowledged representative of the prisoners by dint of his physical superiority, but the catch is that he does not act for himself, he acts on behalf of them all; it is more like a presidential system than an outright dictatorship. Thus, he too cannot turn the key on the detonator. The general will is supreme; everyone in the society must conform to it, even its leaders.
I grant that this idea is the opposite of usual mob mentality where responsibility is spread too thin to weigh down heavily enough upon anyone member to act as an inhibition, but, bear with me and I will provide yet another wafer-thin argument to explain this: the combination of the assumption of responsibility by the group as a whole, with the particular processes of decision-making is what makes the difference. The mob mentality is filtered through an ameliorating makeshift political structure – the semblances of Westminster and Washington democracy – which removes the element of frenzied panic from the mix. Since the hysteria is thus hung out to dry, the result is as the movie portrays is.
What does this say about the comparative merits of each model of social organisation? The Westminster-style democracy (the citizen ferry), without a definite single leader, results in stasis, nobody can do anything; the Washington-style system at least produced some positive action – but with the same overall result.
Hence, in a real-world application, the consolidation of power in the office of a sole leader makes for more token movement but a similarly diffident maintenance of the status quo in real terms.
We therefore have a Nolan-esque political theorem that reinforces the general cussedness of things in this world and the total inability of people to get things done by means which comply with a system of order. Everyone simply sits around and it is up to Batman to stop the Joker’s total destruction. Hence, playing without rules is the better option in a society where billionaire body-builders do not run around in black nomex survival suits, packing memory cloth and magnetic, gas-powered grapple guns, saving the day and saving your hide.
Sorry for the prolixity. Incidentally, by the above reasoning, and by Cacs’ formulation all of the people on the boat were Filipinos. They just waited around for Batman to save them.
Love the movie. Saw it twice in the first two days after it opened.
Cheers.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:03
Good arguments and counter arguments. “Jara” was right to factor in Batman to the equation. The “civilians” and “convicts” knew Batman would do everything to save them.
Suppose the “convicts” pressed the button and escaped. Would they really want the Batman going after them? On the “civilian” side, how would the one who pressed the button feel once the Batman visits him or her?
You also have to factor in the Joker. Do you actually have any guarantee that the Joker would not blow up the second boat once one of them blows up?
In order to have a better perspective one has to account for the two main characters.
And no, the passengers were not all Filipinos. Otherwise they would have called for a recount on the votes but not before forming a committee to investigate who is to blame for the cheating in the voting. Hahahahaha.
July 23rd, 2008 at 19:27
Realistically, if worse comes to worst, i think they’d bite each other’s heads off. People will do anything to get ahead. In reality, the world is a big game of survival of the fittest. We would do ABSOLUTELY anything to survive. In Niccolo Machiavelli’s terms, “the end justifies the means”. The hell with the other people, if pressing the button means freedom from the “game”, then so be it.
At first, i actually thought that the detonators that they were holding were in fact, the detonators of the bombs in their own ferries. So it’s sort of like a test, whoever is selfish enough to press the detonator blows up along with the other passengers and whoever is more selfless gets the reward of living.
However, if this were to happen in the Philippines, the moment The Joker gives the instruction, both ferries would burst into a chorus of The Hail Mary. let’s face it.
and by the way, i know the whole batman contest thing is over, i just wanted to comment.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:58
If this had happened in the Philippines:
Pinoys tend not to listen to PA announcements (which are so poor in quality as to be unintelligible anyway), so on the civilian ferry the news would have gradually trickled through the crowd in various degrees of distortion, via chismis, thereby resulting in a belated realization of the facts of their plight (if the realization comes at all) and an eruption of chaos a few seconds before, or a few minutes after, midnight (provided they’re not blown up yet; see next paragraph). A number of people would have ignored the chismis and remained totally unaware of the real nature of the problem, anxiously waiting for the ferry to start up while guarding their companions and belongings. Their eventual return to safety and close call would be attributed to the grace of God, even though Dick Gordon is blustering in a highly visible manner at the port.
On the convicts’ ferry, the prisoners and guards would not have heard the announcement at all, because the prisoners would have immediately taken the ferry’s stopping as an opportunity to escape. In the resulting riot, one of the policeman or prisoners would have mistaken the detonator for a makeshift pistol (discovered while taking a piss among strange wired drums in the hold) and pressed its trigger, thereby blowing up the other ferry, and dying a violent death when his “pistol” fails to fend off his attacker. Prisoners escape successfully, a Senate investigation is initiated which leads nowhere, and the relatives of the dead civilians are videotaped by news agencies weeping at the ferry offices.