by Jim Vejvoda
July 22, 2008 -With The Dark Knight now in theaters, IGN Movies is already looking ahead to a third Christopher Nolan-directed Batman movie and pondering what it might be about. Just as the ending of Batman Begins introduced the theme of escalation that its sequel explored, The Dark Knight established that things were going to get much worse for Batman and for Gotham City before they will get better. (PLEASE BE ADVISED OF SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT.)
TDK ends with Batman a wanted man, falsely accused of murdering five people including police officers. Batman sacrificed his own reputation in order to protect the memory of fallen district attorney Harvey Dent, who had transformed into the vengeful Two-Face. Gotham needed a hero, a figure of hope to believe in so that it could remain inspired to save itself from crime and corruption. In the end, Batman finds himself alone, hunted by his former police allies, and mourning the loss of his beloved Rachel Dawes.
A third Batman film would likely focus on the redemption of the Caped Crusader in the eyes of the public. What better or more obvious way for that to happen than for Batman to save the city (once again) from a villain bent on its destruction. The trick is to select villains that can be adapted to a real world environment AND fit in thematically with the storyline and stakes established in the first two films. That's a rather tall order and would seem to narrow down the list of potential villains quite a bit.
Why not just recast the Joker and bring back Two-Face, you ask? With Heath Ledger dead and his portrayal of the Joker now indelibly etched into filmgoers' minds, we think it highly unlikely that the filmmakers would recast the role to bring the Clown Prince back. It would also be tough for that character to top what he did to Batman and Gotham in TDK so perhaps once is enough. Likewise, the ending of TDK seemed to suggest that Harvey Dent/Two-Face was dead, although producer Emma Thomas told IGN after an early press screening that Dent's last scene was ambiguous enough to suggest that perhaps he was still alive.
If Dent is still alive, did Gordon have him covertly locked away in Arkham? Given TDK's overt political overtones, the idea of a secret prisoner hidden from the world would be in line with the ethical questions raised in the second film. Having Dent escape and show the city what he'd really become would at least get Batman off the hook for the murders that he didn't commit, but we don't see the filmmakers bringing Dent back either. Story-wise, what more could be done with Joker or Two-Face that TDK didn't accomplish? We suggest the filmmakers bring in new villains for the third movie, but that doesn't mean they can't be tied to the events of the first two films.
Source : http://movies.ign.com/articles
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