The Dark Knight Rises Nonspoiler - Two Face's story in The Dark Knight feels incomplete & should be explore

[The Joker]

It's about quality, not quantity. Two Face's screen time, while limited, was brilliant.

 

[Infinity9999x]

It's about quality, not quantity. Two Face's screen time, while limited, was brilliant.

Oh, as I've said, what we got in TDK wasn't bad at all, from purely a film perspective. In terms of the potential the character of Two-Face had, it was disappointing.

But in terms of the overall film as purely a film, I agree, it was very well done.

 

[ALP]

I agree with what Infinity is saying. But had we gotten more Two Face in TDK, there would have been less Harvey.

 

[Two-Face]

I think Harvey becoming Two-Face end of TDK could've been much better and had Two-Face in TDKR. They kind of missed on Harvey dealing with duatily and I'm not talking about him robbing Second Nationall Bank at 2am on 2nd February.

 

[iamcitizen]

I'd like to quote Todd Alcott's fantastic blog, which sums up my feelings on Two-Face better than I ever could:

For the people who feel shortchanged by the Two-Face storyline, think about this: the entire movie is about him, the struggle for his soul, which represents the soul of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne has sacrificed everything he has (except, of course, all his power and wealth, obviously) for the "good" part of Gotham, the Joker keeps aborbing more and more of the city's power and wealth and then squandering it, and the two of them literally tear Harvey Dent in half. When folks complain that Two-Face isn't in the movie enough, I think what they mean is that the cool special-effects makeup isn't in the movie enough, and that Two-Face doesn't have any kind of outlandish, colorful scheme to implement. Well, that's too bad, but the Joker doesn't have a scheme either. There isn't any "end" to this for the Joker, he wants to take the whole world and send it down the toilet -- an endless project of disorder to match Bruce's endless project of order. Whereas Two-Face has the opposite of a grand scheme -- he wants to kill the people who made him suffer, and then kill himself. The folks who pine for a "bigger" Two-Face story, one to match the one in, say, Batman Forever I guess, where he teams up with the Riddler to build a giant mind-control ray, miss the great tragedy at the heart of The Dark Knight -- they want a supervillain, whereas the Nolans have imagined him as a human being.

EDIT: My bad, I forget to post a link to the actual article I was quoting from: Parts one, two, three, and four.

 

[GothamAlleys]

It's about quality, not quantity.

Bingo

 

[Kurt Wagner]

Detective Wuertz: Dent. Jesus. I thought you was dead.
Two-Face: Half.

He said it himself!

in the film.

Two-face = ALIVE

Harvey = DEAD.

 

[Ekricket]

It's about quality, not quantity. Two Face's screen time, while limited, was brilliant.

One thing that gets kinda glossed over is that we tend to forget we see Harvey/Two-Face from our perspective - we see the development, we see the good he was trying to do and the bad he ended up doing - but look at it from the people of Gothams perspective. They never saw any of the inner struggles, they never saw any of the back story - perhaps the most important piece - they never saw any villian known as Two-Face. In Nolan's Gotham lore Two-Face never existed, was never known, to the people of Gotham he was never a villian if Batman takes all the blame.

In that regard - Two-Face NEVER existed in Nolan's Gotham.

How can the people of Gotham ever know and realize how much Batman is willing to sacrifice and how far he is willing to go for them if his story is never made public? The only way it can come about in a believeable fashion is for Two-Face to reappear and become known to the people of Gotham. Anything else will be dismissed as a cover story or conspiracy - "the cops are trying to protect Batman by laying all his crimes off on a dead guy who can't defend himself."

Quality - sure WE saw it, but the people of Gotham never saw either the quality or the quantity.

 

[El Payaso]

One thing that gets kinda glossed over is that we tend to forget we see Harvey/Two-Face from our perspective - we see the development, we see the good he was trying to do and the bad he ended up doing - but look at it from the people of Gothams perspective. They never saw any of the inner struggles, they never saw any of the back story - perhaps the most important piece - they never saw any villian known as Two-Face. In Nolan's Gotham lore Two-Face never existed, was never known, to the people of Gotham he was never a villian if Batman takes all the blame.

In that regard - Two-Face NEVER existed in Nolan's Gotham.

How can the people of Gotham ever know and realize how much Batman is willing to sacrifice and how far he is willing to go for them if his story is never made public? The only way it can come about in a believeable fashion is for Two-Face to reappear and become known to the people of Gotham. Anything else will be dismissed as a cover story or conspiracy - "the cops are trying to protect Batman by laying all his crimes off on a dead guy who can't defend himself."

Quality - sure WE saw it, but the people of Gotham never saw either the quality or the quantity.

EDIT: I didn't understand your point at first. Neverheless, Two-Face was brilliant. Even if only for us.

 

[jb007]

For me that was the worst part of TDK. Why would you have a villian with the history of Two-Face and kill him off?

I would love to see Batman/Two-Face square off in a film.

 

[a cupcake mess]

What makes Harvey Dent interesting is because he is the personification of one of humanity's biggest fears. The dual nature we all possess, and the possibility that we all have a very dark side to us. It's an age old theme, but a very interesting one, which is the reason why stories like Jekyll and Hyde have lasted for so long.QUOTE]

And that is why I find his character to be better than the Joker's or Batman's. We all know from the get go who the good and bad guy is (even if you're a general fan)..but with Dent, you're pulling for him from the beginning because of the intentions he has only to have him turn to the dark side.

 

[Batmind]

1.)
Thus, Two Face's actions in the second movie would have had an actual consequence and his name would atleast be known throughout Gotham. It's sad that such a major Batman villian barely made an impact on anything at all and Gotham doesn't even know that he existed. It would also fill in the one big plot hole in The Dark Knight, in that Two Face wasn't really shown to have any mental issues in the past. Without such a history, Harvey Dent's sudden transition into a super villian that doesn't care about who he hurts just because one person died, doesn't make any sense. Normal people don't suddenly develop a split personality and go a killing spree just because a person died. Issues like that never just pop up in a person's 40s. Only people with previous history of schizophrenia at a younger age get multiple personalities and such later on.

I don't agree with the bold part. I think Nolan hinted at Harvey's mental issues albeit very subtle. What 'white knight' DA would kidnap a person (yes a criminal, but still) in broad daylight and threaten to kill him ? That's working outside the law.

He even flipped his (dual headed) coin on the guy. He said: "Let's go again" right before Batman caught the coin. So we can only assume he wanted to scare the criminal into spilling his guts. All of this is enough to get him arrested or psych evaluation at least. Especially for a person in his function.

I think Harvey Dent was very much mentally disturbed even before his tragedy. But that's the thing with Nolan's films, you can interpret them the way you want.

 

[kingcobra85]

Im not sure if it has been addressed or not, but has anyone ever considered that, if there is a Lazurus Pit in TDKR, perhaps Bane and/or Ra's puts Dent's body in it, to undo the cover up that Batman and Gordon were doing? Just a thought

 

[Mr. X]

His story was fully complete for so many reasons that you guys already mentioned. One reason though I didn't see, and correct me if I'm wrong and some one mentioned it already, but one big and ultimate reason.....joker.

Joker took Harvey dent, gothams white knight and brought him down to his and batmans level, he even said it. Someone as incorruptible and strong willed for god and justice, joker found his weaknesses and flaws and breaking points and basically destroyed the man till he was a angry evil puppet.

Dents story as a living character is fully complete. What happens with the memory of the man in this third film is another story.....

 

[xisaacx]

The Harvey Dent legacy holds more weight, as a tragic figure to gothams madness. If they brought him back it would tarnish the story. He went out in style, please leave any ideas of him coming back to the expert aka Nolan.

 

[El Payaso]

Detective Wuertz: Dent. Jesus. I thought you was dead.
Two-Face: Half.

He said it himself!

in the film.

Two-face = ALIVE

Harvey = DEAD.

Did he say this before he broke his neck? Yes, he did.

 

[OutRiddled]

I was also a little disappointed with Two-Face in TDK. We got a great Harvey Dent story plus the look of TF was awesome, but all we really got from TF was a vigilante/revenge tale that tied into the whole plot with Joker. And all of this barely amounted to a brief cameo at the end of the film.

At least Tommy Lee Jones did more as Two-Face. Robbing a bank, trying to kill Batman, killing Dick Grayson's family, teaming up with Riddler, etc. I know it was more a campy version, but TLJ was my first introduction to Two-Face. If I had seen Aaron Eckhart first, I doubt I would become much of a fan.

But really, BTAS Two-Face is where it's at.

 

[3redlights]

The trauma simply reinforced preexisting pathos. This is realistic. A perfectly sane person doesn’t become insane suddenly. Tons of people lose loved ones. And the only ones that go on killing rampages or seek vengeance are those with preexisting issues.

There are various ways of writing two face, and the schizohprenic split personality/jeckyl and hyde way is to me personally the least interesting.

What turns Harvey in TDK is not so much the loss of Rachel or the scarring of his face alone, but rather the complete destruction of his worldview.

Whether or not its "realistic" that Dent went nuts with no pre existing trauma is irrelevent, in the context of the movie his role is less about strict psychological realism and more about how he reflects the themes being put across in the movie.

Dents role is basically to be straight man to Batman/Gordon/Jokers conflicting ideologies, and Joker wins.

If you want you can believe that Dent was abused by his father or something 20 years before the movie, but to my mind that just makes the themes weaker. It means isnt about someone being broken by the failure of his crusade for justice, its about someone who was broken before the story started.

 

[The Morningstar]

His worldview was stupid and naive though. And he didn't know what RICO is.

[/troll]

All kidding aside his arc and Joker were the only things i liked about the movie.

 

[Ant-LOX]

the story was complete to me. That was possibly the best front to back, exploration of a character that you could see. This is Nolan's Gotham. Each character needs to actually be grounded in reality. How long would the guy live with his skull exposed anyway? He didn't want to live, he lost everything, he did not care anymore. The Joker gave him the nudge and he went on a murderous spree. Good Guy turned bad Face half mutilated Coin flips Murders Anger and lunacy I think we got a good look at Harvery Dent.