What If Harvey Dent Was In Batman Returns?

[Kamdan]

[Silver Nemesis]

Wow, it's been a long time since I watched a Channel Awesome video. I've got to admit though, I love Rob's ideas in this one. This is one of the best fan fixes of BR I've seen. It preserves everything I love about the film while ironing out many of the problems and adapting the pre-existing elements into a more cohesive Batman story.

I like the idea of Batman giving the Cobblepot file to Dent atop police headquarters, and the sibling relationship between Max and Oswald makes their perfidious interactions more compelling. The Dent storyline is well implemented and addresses issues that were either downplayed or overlooked in the finished film (e.g. how the city officials and GCPD react to the Red Triangle Gang crime wave and the fallout from Batman being framed for the Ice Princess' death). Bruce and Gordon are given larger roles, and we get the perfect set-up for Two-Face being the villain in the third film. Having Penguin be the one to scar Dent, and using the masquerade ball to explain how one side of his face was shielded, is also a neat touch.

I share Rob's sentiment of loving the film despite its flaws, but I wish I could see the alternate version he describes. It's an awesome video. Thanks for posting it, Kamdan. It's great to see guys like Rob Walker and James Rolfe championing BR this year.

[Gotham Knight]

Craps on the movie too much. Hated it.

[thecolorsblend]

This guy loves Batman Returns so much that he missed the entire point of it?

Criticizing BR for the lack of connective tissue it shares with B89 tells me that he's not invested in Burton's entire "This is a different episode" premise. Burton wasn't trying to put together a trilogy of connected films with themes and character arcs that grow and expand in each chapter. The two movies are each their own thing and fanficing unnecessary connections between the two is not just a waste of time; it's the total opposite of what Burton wanted to do.

Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect this guy only claims to enjoy BR as a segue into explaining why he doesn't enjoy it at all. I exited out of the video after six minutes, I've got better things to do.

[The Laughing Fish]

Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect this guy only claims to enjoy BR as a segue into explaining why he doesn't enjoy it at all. I exited out of the video after six minutes, I've got better things to do.

Good decision. I get bored with the complaints about Harvey Dent not appearing in BR. It's a subject that has been done to death, move on already.

Besides, this comes from Channel Awesome. What a misnomer. They're known for making brutally unfunny content such as Nostalgia Critic, and other inane junk. Any video that comes from that YouTube channel deserves to be ignored.

[Silver Nemesis]

Craps on the movie too much. Hated it.

Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect this guy only claims to enjoy BR as a segue into explaining why he doesn't enjoy it at all. I exited out of the video after six minutes, I've got better things to do.

I watched the entire video, and maybe I'm being naïve but I didn't get the impression he was bashing the film at all. I do object to him calling it a "guilty pleasure" (Batman & Robin is a guilty pleasure, BR isn't). But get beyond the poorly-worded introduction and what he's doing here is essentially no different from what many of us have done in numerous threads on this site: thinking critically about a movie we enjoy and speculating about how it might have been different if they'd followed through on concepts featured in the earlier treatments (e.g. Shreck being Cobblepot's brother, or Dent's storyline bridging the gap between B89 and BF). I don't think he was stating that this is how the film should have been so much as postulating about how it could have been. I don't follow the Channel Awesome site so I'm not familiar with this FanScription series, but based on the comments it looks like the premise is similar to Marvel's What If...? comics: namely taking a classic story, implementing a single change (in this case inspired by an earlier treatment) and exploring how the resulting permutations might have turned out. In this episode he just happened to choose Batman Returns.

If you watch the full video you'll see that the only major thing Walker suggests cutting is the Batmobile sabotage subplot. He keeps pretty much everything else as it is and doesn't alter the Catwoman storyline at all. What he does suggest is adding a few extra scenes and lines of dialogue, which would have extended the film by about 10-15 minutes. I personally don't think Two-Face needs to be added to the movie, but if you were to attempt to do so – which is the challenge Rob Walker has set himself in this video, as per the premise of his series – then I think this is as good a way as any of doing it. Is it necessary? No. But there's no harm in it either.

As someone who's read every draft of the BR script, I'm always interested in hearing new takes on what might have been. If anyone's finding themselves upset by criticism of BR, then I recommend starting the video at the 6:42 mark. That's when his scene-by-scene description begins complete with manips and impressionists voicing the characters.

Again, maybe I'm being naïve and misunderstanding his motives here, but I thought his ideas were well thought out and his presentation was entertaining. This video is part of a recent trend I've observed (doubtless inspired by the Yuletide season) of YouTubers encouraging their followers to revisit BR and look at it in a different way. If these videos encourage people to think about the movie, and be less dismissive towards it, then I consider that a good thing.

I think the worst part of his take is that he relegates Selina Kyle to cameo status in favor of Harvey Dent and patterning the movie too much off of the MCU style [...] Furthermore, sacrificing the big emotional payouts for the Bruce/Selina story line in favor of thinking about the next movie (or five) IS a Marvel Cinematic trope that I do have an issue with and why I think these movies aren't really films anymore.

I don't disagree with your point about the MCU, but in this video Walker doesn't suggest cutting any of Selina's scenes or in any way reducing her screen time. He says right at the beginning that her storyline is perfect and he leaves it exactly as it is. He does give her some extra dialogue, but aside from that he doesn't change her story at all.

[The Dark Knight]

I like the idea of Batman giving the Cobblepot file to Dent atop police headquarters

If not GCPD, somewhere Batman feels in control. He gave Vicki the Smylex files but only when inside the batcave.

And generally speaking, I can't imagine Keatonman having a close relationship with Gordon, like Kilmer did. He gave the GCPD the batsignal but he's not there for the ceremony. He's overlooking the city, away from it all.

I feel he would retain that strong sense of privacy whenever he could, and probably communicated with notes, such as the one he has delivered to the Penguin. The most he talks to Hingle is "we'll see", while briskly walking away from him. I think BR's chosen dynamic suits this portrayal.

[The Joker]

Interesting video, and the voice acting was entertaining enough.

Alternate history/timelines is something of an interest to me, so this take on BR was, admittedly, fun to go thru. I think it works under a more modern frame of mind where studios demand a connective tissue in order to evoke a sense of continuity/ongoing story line, but back in '89 or even '92, that kinda thinking just wasn't in the cards. Every film was literally a 'one and done'. Because profit wasn't always a guarantee. If it succeeds, great! Off to the next one! And if it fails? Oh well. At least we'll make our money back thru the merchandise if we're lucky (and if there is any merchandise to speak of!). Hence the emphasis on WB and the whole McDonalds thing.

I will say good call on Kelly McGillis with the fan casting. She's a name I often completely overlook during this time period. As she was attractive in Top Gun, to which I'm sure held steady in 1992. Which is in stark contrast to her appearance now, where she once looked like a appropriate love interest for Tom Cruise, to in current day, anything but.

[Azrael]

It's also been ages since I last watched NC. This "FanScription" IMO destroys what BR is supposed to be, completely destroys it, plus it has too many characters (and they say BR had too many characters). But, it's well made and fun enough (the Penguin impressions could be better, though).

The moment he "cuts" from the Penguin's farewell to a hospital with too many characters, too much dialogue (instead of the snowy alleyway like in the film), I knew he doesn't get it, and he doesn't have to.

[Dagenspear]

I think Batman Returns is an entertaining movie. As weird as it may seem, it and Batman 89 are some of the movies of my childhood. But I think it's missing elements and potential ideas that could tie the franchise together and further build on character dynamics and story elements that I think have already been set up, to me, in the movie in some ways. Here are the ideas God blessed me with for that:

The motive is more tied to Harvey Dent thinking the police need more financial backing, but the mayor is content to let Batman do all the work for the police, who Dent thinks they've become too reliant on.

This adds another element that fills out the idea of mistrust against Batman that the movie later touches on when he's framed by Penguin. And adds a more thorough thematic element that, while I think may be in the movie already, I think is mainly left in the Selina and Bruce last scenes they have together, where I think it comes off like Bruce has learned some form of lesson, in seeing Selina's viscous dark attitude and how it relates to him and now thinking that they're not above the law.

The stress of the job has begun to get to Dent and he's been blacking out and losing time, and seeing a therapist to deal with his problems and talk about his childhood abuse at the hands of his dad, him killing his dad in defense of his mom as he used his coin to force young Harvey what would happen.

Harvey has begun trying to use flipping the coin to make choices for himself as a way to relieve his stress.

Penguin approaches Harvey as a way to help him get his foothold, Harvey being the trusted figure that he is. Harvey thinks he may be able to use the situation to get Penguin in run for mayor and get the funding for the police department and less dependent on Batman.

Selina being his assistant, who accidentally stumbles across the file and information on his mental state and when Dent catches her, her trying to suggest that he step down (Harvey being unwilling to for his fear of leaving Gotham to be consumed by its insanity, him pressuring himself that he has to protect it), the stress of this causing him to snap and transition into his darker personality that takes over in his blackouts. This dark version pushing Selina out the window, in a perception of the ends of justify the means.

Naturally the change equals a change in how Bruce and Harvey interact, as opposed to how Bruce and Shreck interact. Now the dynamic is more one of opposing perspectives that Bruce begins to see Harvey's side of in the situation about Batman and how Batman may be responsible for the current insanity of their situation. We can maybe even parallel the idea of Bruce's obsession to save Gotham being connected to his parents death and Harvey's obsession to do so and how he pressures himself to is connected to him feeling powerless as a child to protect his mom and how he killed his dad to do so.

His mental breaking begins to become harsher, after finding out that he's made a deal with a criminal in Oswald, the stress beginning to consume him.

At the end, the stress finally causes a complete break when he's taken by Penguin (for Harvey turning on him after realizing what he is), and is nearly killed by Selina, him trying to kill her in his darker persona, and then her electrocuting him, burning half his face.

Amongst the ending parts of the movie, Bruce visits Harvey in the hospital, apologizing for failing him and the city, later showing Harvey no longer in his bed, and ending on an uncertain not for Bruce about himself and how he relates to the city.

Please review and tell me what you think!