Warbler said:
Gaffer Tape said:
. He fell into madness for very specific reasons, and his only criminal acts were against very specific people who had wronged him or Rachel.
just how did Batman or Gordon wrong Harvey or Rachel? Gordon and his cops tried to say Rachel, they just couldn't get there in time. Batman wanted to rescue Rachel, but the Joker lied to him and gave Harvey's location as the location where Rachel was. One thing I never understood is why Gordon and Batman never tried to tell him about the mix up. Harvey was pissed off that they went after him instead of Rachel, informing of the mix up might have been helpful.
It was Gordon's corrupt cops, that Harvey had warned Gordon about, that betrayed him. Harvey was the only one of the three who would not make compromises on morality, while Batman and Gordon worked outside of the rules to accomplish the greater good, and in so doing, Harvey was a casualty.
Saving either Harvey or Rachel came down to chance, to random chance, and it ended up being he who was saved and Rachel who died. Knowing about the mix-up wouldn't have changed anything in his mind.
Gaffer Tape said:
I'm not sure about missing the point of Two Face. I'm really more interested in the point of this continuity's Two Face, and this Two Face just wouldn't have the motivation to be a career criminal, unless you fall back on the cliche of, "Well, his burns just made him go crazy," which isn't a very compelling motivation, not on par with what we were given in TDK.
it was a compelling enough motivation in all the other incarnations of Two Face, why not this one?
Gaffer Tape said:
But to bring it back around, I got TAS for Christmas, and the one thing I found myself a bit disappointed by is the fact that so many villains are so... human. That's not what bothers me about it. That's awesome. But it means their villainy is tied to a very specific wrong committed against them, and, by the end of their origin story episodes, that's usually resolved... leaving them very little motivation to continue as villains. But then they keep showing up to do their shtick just because they're supposed to be villains, robbing them of their humanity and sympathetic nature that made them so compelling in their inaugural appearances, but which are almost impossible to maintain if you want to keep using them regularly. And that's what I appreciate about Harvey so much in this movie. He had his specific story arc. He fulfilled it. He got out of the way before he became tired. And his actions influence Batman's direction for the next film. I honestly can't see that being handled any better.
You do realize that in the comics the villain you talking about come back again and again, right? Would you really have wanted these villains to be in only one episode?
These two points rather go hand in hand as far as I'm concerned. This version of Harvey is a different one than the one in the comics, just like their Joker is different. It's true in spirit but more realistic, and the more realistic, the harder it is to buy into anyone just being a career criminal for the sake of a gimmick. It worked well for the Joker, but Harvey, as he is presented in The Dark Knight, is not that person. Other versions of Harvey could have and have been that person. But this Harvey isn't the Joker. He's not out to prove anything to Gotham, he's not out to show the public at large that chance is the only true justice. That's not how he was written here. His only motivation as Two-Face is to put those people who helped cause Rachel's death in the same situation she was in: a 50/50 chance for life or death. He accomplished that. There was nothing else for him to do. To try would have missed the whole point of his character and turned him into someone else entirely.
As for your last point, yes, I know that. And that's why I have a hard time reading American comics anymore because nothing is allowed to change in any significant way. I'm content with just reading plot summaries every few years to see what interesting thing has come along. That's where the movies have the advantage, because they are allowed to tell a complete story that has a beginning, middle, and end, while comics are only allowed to continue indefinitely until they reboot and start over again. As for only wanting them to be in one episode, it depends on how well they could have pulled off sequels. And, yes, I call them sequels because the creators admitted they wrote each episode as if it was a mini-movie, which is why those origin stories feel so complete. But it has the side-effect of making it harder to give them compelling reasons to come back.
