The biggest mistake I believe Nolan could have made with Two-Face is to go to the extremes that you wanted to see. The whole point of Dent in TDK was to show him as the light for Gotham, if you were to dabble in the split personality thing the tragic downfall is diminished because the seeds of him turning bad are planted for all to see. I look at a character like Gollum from LOTR, he's a tragic character but his ultimate demise isn't emotionally effective because you know he's going to turn. There's subtlety in TDK Dent character that hints at someone who isn't all he seems but manages to suppress it, like most of Nolan's work it isn't melodramatic. Overall he's seen in the good light to us the audience because he has to in order for us to get emotionally attached to him - it sucks when he loses Rachel, it sucks when he gets scarred, it sucks when he dies. Ultimately, I believe it's all just semantics, regardless of how close to the comics it is the concepts is exactly the same.
I disagree completley.
But, to be clear, I want you to understand that I'm not suggesting we get a Gollum-like Two-Face in which he's arguing with himself. I would have been exciting because we would have seen
Nolan's approach on a man with an extreme mental disorder. Maybe Dent doesn't remember what happens when Two-Face takes over, or maybe it goes through degrees, where at one level we see him like he was in TDK, and when it get's worse his psychosis deepens.
Who knows? The problem is, Nolan didn't explore it. But what bothers me even more, is that Nolan killed off a character SO rich in potential.
Two-Face is more then just the hokey, "I'm going to rob the SECOND national bank on February SECOND, at TWO am." He's a living embodiment of one of the oldest themes in fiction. The duality of humans.
We can all relate to the innate fear humans have of our darker sides. This is the reason why stories like Jekyll and Hyde have endured for so long. Harvey Dent is the embodiment of that fear. The living, walking, breathing worst example of what could happen if we don't find a way to balance the dark and light nature of ourselves.
Because of what happened to him, Dent is obsessed with fate, but he's also obsessed with the light and dark sides in everything, and this is what he tries to exploit. He's unique in his approach because, unlike people like the Joker, he doesn't want to obliterate the good in people, he wants to exploit both the light and the dark, and set them on a path to destroy each other, just like it destroyed him.
He also would have fit himself in perfectly with how the next movie is shaping up---thematically speaking. We're dealing with a Batman on the run, pushed to his limits, someone who's probably going to be struggling with his dual nature even more. You then have the character of Catwoman, representing the allure of the darker side, the excitement and disregard for rules. You have Gordon, representing the light, an example to Bruce of how a man can lead a normal life, live by the law, and be happy. And then you have Dent, a living example of what happens when you can't balance both those sides of you.
We wouldn't have been able to get all that in the last film, but had they saved Two-Face for the third, we could have. And it's why I'm never going to be satisfied with the abridged version of the character we got.
As a film fan, I understand why Nolan did what he did. It fit thematically, it was powerful, it concluded nicely, but as a comic fan, I'll never be happy with how Two-Face went out.
Whatsa matter wit you?
