The Dark Knight Rises The Harvey Dent Act: what does it mean for Batman?

[Brain Damage]

Wait, I thought Dent didnt die. I thought they left that part a little open ended. I was led to believe that he was unconscious at end of the dark knight.

No no, quite dead.
As proven by the funeral scene and by Nolan himself confirming it.

 

[AnneFan]

Yeah, it's in the script, novelisation, everywhere. If that's not enough, TDKR will remove all doubt. Blackgate Prison was dedicated to Harvey Dent March 2010 - for his continued service to protect Gotham City. There's going to be a Harvey Dent memorial function at Wayne Manor. So on and so forth.

 

[kvz5]

Is there any actual proof of that? I mean, it seems like something the studio might do, but have Nolan or Goyer ever actually said that in an interview or anything, or is it just a conspiracy theory?

I don't remember where it originated or if it's one of those things that just got repeated over and over again and is now passed on as a fact. From what I remember, WB gave Nolan and Co. the free reign to do what they want with BB with the one request that there should be a female love interest. The word was that the non-romance aspects of Rachel's character in BB was supposed to be Dent but because of WB's mandate they changed it to Rachel Dawes.

[YT]yM3_e6o6p3I[/YT]

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
(but on the plus side it reminded me of the pre-BB excitement, we were still unsure of the final product)

I totally forgot that! Holy crap. They should at least have chosen an indie rock song or something. That was uh... cringe worthy.

 

[lordofthenerds]

[YT]yM3_e6o6p3I[/YT]

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
(but on the plus side it reminded me of the pre-BB excitement, we were still unsure of the final product)

That makes BB look like a bad Batman soap.

 

[kvz5]

I bet they played that on CW.

 

[-Catwoman-]

Lololol I've seen the movie 3 times in theatres and didn't remember? My bad. Anyways, I wish they didn't kill him off. Two face is great.

 

[iansilv]

Dangit! Enough about Rachel Dawes! Come on- someone tell me what they think of my theory in post #73!

 

[munchie64]

Hey- what about this- considering that the "Harvey Dent Act" really does sound like a specific piece of legislation, and that photo from the New York set that refers to Gotham citizens seeing "something" and saying "something, what if the Harvey Dent Act is a specific law, that makes it illegal to NOT report a crime? The Harvey Dent Act could be a law that makes people essentially accomplices for any crime they know about and don't report.

Here's why I think that might be it- Harvey Dent was all about confronting crime and not being afraid of the mob in open court. The idea that people could be forced to report crime- maybe be held criminally liable for the crimes they fault to report- would certainly crack down on crime. But it would cause a huge amount of mistrust between many people- and that could be the "seething" people are talking about. So now, you have a populace that is safer, with less crime, but many, many people are frustrated by feeling like the have been forced to betray people close to them for committing crimes. Friendships and relationships ended, people distrust each other a lot more.

A law like this would go against our society's laws and many in the "real world" would consider a duty to report crime or face punishment a breach of their liberties. But in the fantasy world of Gotham city, with all of the crazy stuff that has been going on, it might be something that is enacted as an emergency measure the people accept. I can imagine the feeling of rage that people would feel after having to live under a law like this, report on people close to them for committing any crimes- even petty ones- and THEN finding out that the person who's ideology it was based on was in fact breaking the law himself by killing people - including cops- with the flip of a coin...

Thoughts anyone?

That's a nice theory, and Gothamites need a reason to hate the authorities in this film (or so it seems so far). The Harvey Dent Act also seems to be the reason why there's a whole new prison (Blackgate). However, I think that the act will have something to do with class struggles as that seems to be a really big thing in this film. The rich and the poor need to be divided in some way in order to have what Selina says in the trailer make sense.