Something I don't quite understand;
while in production we knew Eddie Brock would be in spider-man 3 and Harvey Dent in the dark knight. At the time, the general belief among fans was that they would be set up as the main villains for the next films.
Raimi was heavily criticized for bringing in Venom for a few scenes and killing him so my question is why did Nolan escape the same wrath for doing the same thing to two face?
I'm one of those spider fans who likes what the black suit brought to the table in regards to Peter's life. If Venom needs to feature at the end to receive all that content, I'm cool.
Instead of people slagging off what they hated, here's what I liked about Venom once he transformed:
He was infinitely stronger than Spider-Man in combat, ala the comics.
He didn't set off Spider-Man's spider sense, ala the comics.
He looks like Venom from the comic books. No realism cop outs here.
He was the only villain Spider-Man managed to defeat himself, and it was well earned.
As you rightly say riddler, SM3 gets blasted for this yet TDK features Two-Face in a limited role too. The Nolan clan say there's Harvey Dent content beforehand, which while true, can also be said of Eddie Brock in SM3.
TDK Rises gets a free pass for the butler bottling up information and spilling it years later. But SM3 gets blasted for doing the same thing, and first.
Spider-Man 3 is about what happens when Peter gives in to his dark side. Venom is the culmination of that.
Two Face is allegedly the culmination of what TDK was up to but it came out of nowhere, went nowhere and ended out of nowhere.
That's the main difference in my mind.
So why does Raimi get bashed on while Nolan gets praised? Simple. Fandom drank the Nolan kool-aid. Raimi never had anywhere near his level of credibility.
I thought Spider-Man 3 was an average film at best, but not as bad as many people like to make it out to be. I thought it should have been separated into two movies and not crammed into one - Spider-Man being affected by the symbiote and how he mistakes Sandman to be his uncle's killer, and then Venom should have been in his own film as the villain.
I liked how he was a photographer who was trying to improve his career at the Daily Bugle at all cost until he was disgraced by Peter Parker. No matter how much I agree that Venom was rushed, at least his vendetta against Spider-Man made sense.
The same can't be said about Harvey Dent though. As colors said, Two-Face's emergence suddenly came out of nowhere and ended out of nowhere. But I would argue not only was Two-Face's character was rushed, it was absurd too. The 'chance' aspect of his character was painfully forced, and he had absolutely no reason to let the Joker go. If Two-Face let that happen because he relied on chance, then it's rather contradictory that he hates Gordon and tries to punish him for not being able to prevent Rachel dying and not taking drastic measures which might have prevented her murder. So he blames Gordon for Rachel's death, but not the Joker. But the Joker was the one who was the mastermind behind getting Rachel and Harvey kidnapped, leading to their tragic outcomes AND not to mention that he tried to kill both people before. Despite all of this, we're supposed to accept that Dent would let his aggressor escape, but still stay vengeful by going after everyone else involved in Rachel's murder? Even taking vengeance towards those who failed to stop it from happening? What a load of crap.
And if Dent's character was hampered by mental illness well it's still not believable because: a) Dent showed no signs of any believable psychosis to begin with and b) it still doesn't change the fact that his sudden change from being a well-meaning, albeit arrogant, white knight to a cold-blooded killer who let's his aggressor go at the same time, is just absurd.
If anything, Dent becoming Two-Face should've been in the third movie, and we would've gotten a revenge plot where Batman has to do everything he can to stop him. Of course that would've changed the entire plot in the end of TDK and Rises, but if I could change the whole outcome I definitely would.
I'd give Spider-Man 3 a 6/10, because they've completely butchered the symbiote saga and Venom. I know that Raimi was forced to use him, but that's no excuse for making Sandman and New Goblin the real villains with Venom sort of there.
Two-face in TDK was much better by comparison.
my only minor beef with Venom is I'd have preferred if he were speaking in first person plural like he does in the comics. But if you accept the fact that it was the final film in the series, it was decent. I liked that he was the answer to the question "what if a bad person got Peter Parkers powers"
Two face should have been saved for the next film. Perhaps take away Selina, she was kind of pointless in the film. And I'd have gotten rid of the mysterious 'injury' to bruce wayne, it didn't add anything, I'd have put it a year or so later than the dark knight, i felt all that time off and peace crap implied Batman wasn't needed.
I agree with riddler on Venom and S-M 3 and I'd like to add that TDKR wasn't a bad film but it failed to live up to expectations for me. Killing off Two-Face at the climax of TDK was a mistake in my book. They really should've locked him up and saved him for the last film. A character like Two-Face has much greater potential that what we saw in TDK.
It would have been awesome if Two-Face had been the judge in Bane's kangaroo court in TDKR.
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Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Wed, 31 Jul 2013, 17:56
It would have been awesome if Two-Face had been the judge in Bane's kangaroo court in TDKR.
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Yeah given his law background and the fact that there were two sentencing options (death or exhile) two face would have lended better for that role than Scarecrow.
It would have been better if Joker was the judge and Two-Face the prosecutor.
I found this bit of information on a Batman Wikia page:
QuoteAccording to Nolan, had Ledger not died, part of the plot for the sequel would have had the Joker standing trial for his crimes, with Two-Face, having survived his encounter with Batman, also rampaging across Gotham.
Source: http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Joker_%28Heath_Ledger%29#Behind_the_Scenes (http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Joker_%28Heath_Ledger%29#Behind_the_Scenes)
Bear in mind though, that is an unquoted source, and it could have been made up. But
if that was true, then it would explain why they would choose that ludicrous ending for TDK.
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Thu, 1 Aug 2013, 00:38I found this bit of information on a Batman Wikia page:
QuoteAccording to Nolan, had Ledger not died, part of the plot for the sequel would have had the Joker standing trial for his crimes, with Two-Face, having survived his encounter with Batman, also rampaging across Gotham.
Source: http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Joker_%28Heath_Ledger%29#Behind_the_Scenes (http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Joker_%28Heath_Ledger%29#Behind_the_Scenes)
Bear in mind though, that is an unquoted source, and it could have been made up. But if that was true, then it would explain why they would choose that ludicrous ending for TDK.
I don't buy it. Ledger passed away a bit less than six months before TDK came out. I can't kill enough brain cells to convince myself the movie could've been so radically changed in that amount of time or that the thought would've even crossed Nolan's mind.
That wiki article is half-right, half wrong. Ledger's death may have affected their ideas for a third movie, but it didn't affect keeping Harvey/Two-Face alive at the end of the film (and why would it?).
The article's detail of the plot- with Joker on trial and Two-Face as the main villain- seems to be paraphrased from a magazine article that David Goyer did in 2005 after Batman Begins released, where, in a rare moment of being forthcoming on the future movies, outlined those plans for the next two movies:
QuoteWriter David Goyer talks about possible sequels and says (spoilers ahead), "The next one would have Batman enlisting the aid of Gordon and [Harvey] Dent [aka Two-Face] in bringing down the Joker... but not killing him, which is a mistake they made in the first one." The article then says that "In the third, the Joker would go on trial, scarring Dent in the process."
http://www.superherohype.com/features/articles/88561-premiere-features-batman-begins
As you can guess, this changed during the development process of The Dark Knight by having Dent scarred by Joker and becoming Two-Face in the second installment, which was obviously way before Ledger's sudden death.
I don't see how Ledgers death would have affected two face being in the third film either. The second film definitively showed Harvey as dead. If anything Ledger's death should have increased the likelyhood of two face being in the third film.