We here at Screen Rant recently asked the question, “What Will Batman 3 Be About?” The third installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise is easily one of the most anticipated sequels ever – as evidenced by the HUGE outpouring of reader reaction our article is STILL receiving.
Out of the 350+ comments left by you Batman fans, two clear points of debate raged longest and hardest throughout the thread of discussion. After seeing the sparks of that debate, we thought it only fitting that we should fan it into a brush fire. So, without further ado I now ask:
Should Two-Face and The Joker be brought back for Batman 3?
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THE NEW IMPORTANCE OF THE VILLAIN
One of the things I really appreciated about Batman Begins and The Dark Knight was that it was clear with both films that scribes Chris and John Nolan and David S. Goyer all truly understood the character of Batman and the universe that he inhabited. More than that, the writers also had a keen eye for what made all of Batman’s supporting characters and (most importantly) the villains in his rogues gallery tick. If I have one criticism of Burton’s Batman films, it’s that the villains were mainly evil foils for Batman, there more for (wonderful) theatrics rather than any sort of pointed reason.
In Nolan’s films, the villains (for the most part) have carried much more dramatic weight. Certainly that’s true for The Dark Knight: The Joker wasn’t just there for show of a trademark smile (cough, cough), he added actual thematic meaning to the story, as did Harvey/Two-Face. And for that matter, so did Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins (Bruce Wayne twisted by anger).
There has been some debate about whether Batman 3 should position itself as a direct sequel to The Dark Knight, or perhaps as more of a standalone story, set long after TDK. In either case, if Nolan is at the helm you know that whatever villain(s) go into the script will only be in there if they add weight and meaning to the story. And while it would be a novel kick to see a few new villains rolled out for a flashy sequel, if Batman 3 is to be set directly after Dark Knight then there is still a lot of narrative weight still hanging on both The Joker and Harvey/Two-Face.
So do you bring them back?
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TWO-FACE
Ok, so fans have said it; Nolan has said it; and even Dark Knight star Aaron Eckhart (eventually) said it:
Harvey Dent dies at the end of The Dark Knight. End of story.
However, as many of our readers have pointed out, that “death” marks the end of Harvey Dent’s story. Two-Face has a story all his (their?) own to tell.
I’m going to be honest: I’ve already argued that Batman 3 should bring back Two-Face, so I’m not going to pretend here that I’m not already in favor of that option. TDK did a great job exploring Harvey Dent, what he meant to Gotham and what it meant when he “fell from grace.” Nonetheless, I feel like there is still so much to explore in the character of TWO-FACE, and who that character becomes after the last remnants of Harvey Dent are (seemingly) gone.
Seeing Harvey fully transformed into Two-Face would add the kind of weight and hopelessness which (I think we all believe) is going to be a necessary starting point for Batman’s character in the next film. Picture it: The Caped Crusader is low. He’s hunted. He’s alone. He’s sacrificed much. Lost so much. He’s trying hard to maintain but there is Two-Face, always staring back as a testament to his failure, as morally complicated and conflicted as Batman himself.
Suddenly this character doesn’t sound as creatively exhausted as people are claiming, does he?
Another point of convergence in a lot of our reader comments was that any Dark Knight sequel should involve a flat-out war for control of Gotham City. Of those who held such an opinion, a large percentage also thought that B3 should be titled Gotham City for that very reason. If that is the direction the film goes in, then absolutely Two-Face would be an important cornerstone of the story. After all, as a D.A. Harvey Dent knew the entire inner workings of Gotham city’s businesses, political network, banking network, legal system, prison system, etc… If there was some kind of epic showdown for Gotham, then Two-Face would be one of the most crucial pieces on the chessboard.
Black Mask in Batman 3? (Click image for source)
Of course a lot of people have said that B3 should feature the criminal mastermind Black Mask (above), a classic Bat-villain who has recently enjoyed something of a resurgence in the comic books. But I have to ask: why drag us all through yet another villain origin story, just to maneuver said villain into a position (a crime boss connected all over Gotham) that you could fill with a villain the audience already knows and (for the most part) loves? Putting Two-Face into play frees the story up to introduce whatever secondary villains it wants, without having to exhaust a lot of time getting into their origins.
For example: Two-Face could approach Black Mask, The Penguin or whoever, deliver a few expository lines of dialogue to fill us in on who the villain is, and how he/she fits into the scheme of Gotham (based on his knowledge as a D.A.), and bada-bing, bada-boom, we’ve got a new player in the game, no time wasted.
So where’s the down-side of bringing Two-Face back? “Because it’s boring?” “Because it’s beating a dead horse?”
IMHO, if you truly understand why the character has been so pivotal and important to the Batman universe (I’d rank him #3 behind The Joker and Catwoman), then you should also understand just how much cinematic juice is left in this character. How do you NOT go after that juice when you know you’ve got an actor (Eckhart) who can truly apply the squeeze? Do people really think performances like his just just come with every Summer Movie Blockbuster?
UPDATE: Here’s what Two-Face himself (Aaron Eckhart) has to say on the subject:
MY VOTE: Bring back Two-Face!
Continue reading for pro/con arguments on whether the Joker should return…
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330 Comments
@M-cat
Actually, looking at the scenes, it would have been quite easy to edit it so that Two-Face stays alive and Joker dies. And they had time to do that after Ledger’s death… But it’s the director and the studio’s decision, and they obviously made their decision, so oh well…
Ken
Yeah I thought they had plenty of time to edit it if they wanted to but I guess they had made up there mind already. I think there may be plans to bring back Two-Face. I just have a feeling, right or wrong just feel it.
@mcat
I hope so, Two-Face was one of Batman’s main villains, he’s not someone who just appeared once and went away…
Ken
Maybe Nolan has something cooked up for us like not bringing him back until halfway through the movie or something. Maybe he has some big surprise in store for us. I don’t know because Nolan seems to do what he wants and doesn’t listen to anyone else. And that’s fine because I trust him over anyone to make it right for the final chapter of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. He’s almost like James Cameron where I’ll watch anything he does now. I have no idea what Inception is about but I trust Nolan to make the experience one of a kind. He is one of the only directors/writers/producers that does serious tone with dark themes and great action. A couple more huge blockbusters and he’s there with Cameron IMO.
@M-Cat
Uh, I’ll have to respectfully disagree, big time. No where close to James Cameron IMO. The Dark Knight had plenty of things that kept it from being a great movie. It was a great movie up until a certain point… The last 20 minutes or so of the movie really ruined it in my opinion. The pacing was horrible, the whole cell phone infrared thing was pretty ridiculous, the entire concept of the whole ferry scene was very misguided in my opinion, and that lame speech about how “Batman is being the hero he needs to be” crap really was just adding insult to injury. But even before that point, the fighting in the movie was pretty dumb, that entire beginning scene in the garage was kind of silly, esepcially the ending of him landing on the van which just magically stops right when he lands on it… I guess Nolan never heard of a thing called momentum… And that shattering bullet sequence was really really dumb. And how Joker escaped was just WAY too convenient and was full of typical hollywood cop-outs.
I know it sounds like I’m saying the movie was horrible, but most of those things were really in that ending that I really didn’t like. The rest of the movie was very ambitious and very well made. In fact, I believe Nolan had gotten a bit too ambitious with that ending, and the drama just seemed too forced for it to work in my opinion.
When you watch James Cameron movies, you’ll never find these pacing issues and inconsistencies. Well, some can argue that The Abyss sufferred from poor pacing, and at times I guess it did, but I found it interesting enough to not get bored.
Personally, while I really liked Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (except for that ending), I don’t really see anything real special about Nolan or Bale. The Prestige had a nifty twist and was pretty creative, but other than that, I wasn’t that blown away by it. And I know a lot of people love Momento, so I’m going to get a lot of hate messages for saying this (and for my TDK criticisms I’m sure), but I never could figure out what the big deal was with Momento. I felt a lot of the plot twists were very contrived. I mean, it was interesting, and I could tell where he intended for me, the viewer, to go “ohhh” and “wow” with surprise, but it just didn’t have the effect on me…
Anyway, he’s definitely a good director, but I personally wouldn’t consider him a legend like Cameron is, well, not yet at least. He’s still better than most directors though IMO…
Vic
one of your “sister” sites has a great article up about “your favorite movie scene of all time” and i thought that would be a great article for this crowd. not sure if i should mention site name or not on here.
@Ken J
I agree completely with your assessment of Bale and Nolan’s Batman series. I do think Bale deserves some credit, as he was fully portraying different aspects of a character with many nuances. For instance, the public portrayal of Bruce Wayne is a completely contrived persona from Bruce Wayne’s perspective, and there is even some carry-over of that persona in his interactions with Lucius Fox (and perhaps Alfred). The moments that the character seems most genuine is when he goes all-out Batman, which I think is a great take on the character. Batman’s role was a bit downplayed for the Joker’s sake in TDK, but I really think that Bale nailed it in ways that haven’t been on the big screen before.
And, IMO, everything Cameron’s done since True Lies has sucked.
@Simon
Christian Bale did do a good job with Batman, it’s too bad for TDK he was basically put on the back-burner…
And about Cameron, he only directed one movie after True Lies, which is Titanic… I don’t really like Titanic either, but it’s just weird to word it like “every movie” after True Lies when that’s only one, lol.
Well, he directed T2:3D which was an amusement park attraction, not sure if that counts. He produced a few things but that doesn’t really mean he actually had total creative control, and he did some documentaries…
@M-cat
You can mention other sites, I’m friends with the folks behind most of them.
Vic
Ok I was supporting the idea of having the Joker back cuz if B3 is gonna be inferior becuz of the story without the Joker then might as well have him back, if you’re gonna be critised either way, might as well have ur ace there.
But watching this clip…http://nextbatmanbadguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/news-notes.html
not gonna work man, I’d just think whoever plays the Joker he’s gonna be perceived as someone doing a cheesy impersonation and I don’t know whether to laugh or take him seriously, so off putting
I liked ‘Titanic(1997)’ for the amazing technical achievement by Cameron and his crew that brought a huge ***well-detailed*** ship dead almost ninety years ago (before the movie was made), to life.
Whenever I get an oppurtunity to watch the movie I concentrate intensely only on its amazing technical ship-details, the sinking process and ofcourse the “Winslet’s nude painting” scene and just ignore everything else.
For me, the last Enjoyable movie from Cameron was ‘True Lies (1994)’ and but his Greatest was the ‘Terminator’ series.
Also contrary to what most people say The Abyss being his ‘weakest’ film, I disagree. I very much enjoyed it too. In fact ‘The Abyss (1989)’ was the first ground-breaking movie of its type in the field of Visual Effects. I am ofcourse referring to the “pseudopod”, the slithery underwater cyborg that mimics the ship’s crew.
In TDK,
I also think there was no need for the Car-parking fight scene or even Scarecrow at all.
But since it exists, I think, right from the Scene where Scarecrow starts running away in his van to the scene of Batman’s jump, everything had momentum. But I think, Scarecrow is no match for Batman in a physical fight. Infact that is the reason why when Batman lands on the van, the scene terminates impressively because the scene has its momentum ended precisely there. There (is no / will not be any) momentum left in any scene after Batman gets his hands on criminals who cannot match him up to him strength-to-strength in a physical fight, unless they have some tricks up their sleeves to take Batman by surprise only which would be worth displaying on the screen. Scarecrow already had used his trick in BB and Batman never does the same mistake again.
I think the only reason may be Nolan had that scene inserted was to introduce the big dogs and to expose Batman’s and his suit’s vulnerability to those dogs, so that he has a ready-made curious atmosphere created when The Joker unleashes his own huge dogs on The Bat at the climax. But the whole over-all effect on me was weak.
Also maybe Nolan showed the ferry scene to display the The Joker’s view that the soul of Gotham is corrupted by like him and how he is wrong about it.
I would give the “cell-phones-with-infrared-technology” scene a benefit of doubt especially if it’s present in a Super-hero movie. Atleast it’s better than the “missiles-from-a-body-suit” technology for some other superhero which tries to make the huge missile-launching centers all over the world appear like fools. But in TDK, the scene equivalent to that absurdness was the “finger-prints from a shattered bullet” scene which is utterly dumb because its IMPOSSIBLE (!!!) by any standards.
Also the last 20 minutes including the speech too were momentum-less and the fist-to-fist physical fights were unimpressive at best. They were excellent in BB. But the “(S)laughter is the Best medicine” chase was superb.
Anyway, since I am not a professional critic, whenever I go to watch a movie for the first time in the theater, I wait for the Personalities of the characters involved and the BASIC Story-Line, both, to blow me away (which they did in TDK). The Technical details and Faults can wait for the second viewing. On the contrary, a professional critic always looks for the latter two as a priority during the first viewing itself and misses to capture the soul of the movie. A critic usually never enjoys a movie because whenever he watches a movie for the first time it’s with a Pre-Determined direction of opinion about the movie in his mind which has its impact on what he looks for in the movie. For instance, a PRO-movie opinion would be: “”Wow ! A movie that has real-life injected in Batman and his adversaries for the first time in movie history!! That can be great!” . But an ANTI-movie opinion would be: “What ! A magical superhero pretending to be existing in real-life ?!! That must be bad !!”. (Ofcourse, he ignores comfortably that Batman has no magic and no out-of this-world gadgets.)
Ultimately he only sees the movie only as its parts and not as a whole (No, not even as the sum of its parts). It’s easier to faults that way.
As for ‘The Prestige’, it was good while it lasted and a lot better than other contemporary movies out there. And what made it entertaining for me was the imaginary role of real-life physicist Tesla in the imaginary protagonist’s life.
@Amol
Don’t get me wrong, I also loved The Abyss, but only the director’s cut. The theatrical cut didn’t make much sense since they cut out the most important aspect of the movie, lol.
And about TDK, I’m glad I’m not the only one not blown away with the whole shattering bullet BS or the last 20 minutes of that movie… Most of everything up until that point was excellent though… But it kind of sucks that the ending ruined what could have been an overall excellent movie in my opinion…
Science-Fiction scenes are of two types, ones that do not exist today but can possibly in the future with some efforts and others which can NEVER EVER happen and try to falsify Physics. The “cell-phones-with-infrared-technology” is of the former type while “finger-prints from a shattered bullet” was of the latter type.
Frankly, he need not have put that finger-prints-bullet scene in the movie, however great a detective The Batman is. That scene spoils the movie for me.
And James Cameron IS a perfectionist, The only other being Steven Spielberg …IMHO, but Nolan has some way to go before he reaches that milestone.
‘True Lies-2′ could have happened long ago if ‘9/11′ had not.
@Ken J
Yeah, the extended cut with the extra end footage tacked on is much better – the original film didn’t make much sense without that footage.
Vic
@Vic
LOL, yah, I can’t believe they cut out that footage. I thought those were the most important parts of the movie!
@Ken
(”…but I found it interesting enough to not get bored.”)
I can see you loved ‘The Abyss’. In fact those comments of mine related to ‘The Abyss’ were to support you.
Michael, (if you still care, haha)
So I was thinking about your Killer Croc idea and I did come up with a possible actor to play him, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister. He was in The Dark Knight and credited as the Tattooed Prisoner.
@Hector
how about this for a scenario:
William Fichtner, the actor who played the bank manager in the Dark Knight, comes back as the Riddler. The Joker left him alive with that “gas” in the bank and said whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stranger. Maybe he shows up as the Riddler in the third movie all whacked out of his mind. just a though.
M-Cat,
Nice one even though I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be a front runner for The Riddler if used. I could most definitely see Fichtner as Black Mask though, think that would fit him better.
Good idea though.
Black Mask? Yeah, I guess I could see that too. Nolan would have to come up with some creative direction to make it work with either The Riddler or Black Mask but he’s got the chops to do it.
The Dark KNight, the best ending I ever saw
LOL, fanboyism is a disease…
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