What flaws do you see in The Dark Knight?

Christopher Nolan's 2008 mega success about Batman's attempts to defeat a criminal mastermind known only as the Joker.
Post Reply
Posts: 18
Joined: March 2009
The Dark Knight was a perfect movie, with two minor caveats.

While the Joker recieved exceptional development and a fitting conclusion (one can simply assume that he is locked up in a maximum security prison), harvey dent/two face was not explored fully as a character.

The transition from Dent to Two Face was far too rapid. In the comic books, dent had a history of psychiatric problems that were confidential and thus unknown to anyone before he ever became two face. It made sense that he could go mad. But in the movie, it portrays a strong willed character, who just because the person he loved dies, abandons all logic and goes completely mad. That's not realistic character progression. A person doesn't simply go from sane to insane in an instant.

Two Face needs to come back in Batman 3. It makes perfect sense that Two Face was locked away at Arkham Asylam by Gordon without anyone's knowledge. If anyone found out that dent went crazy, the entire mob that was prosecuted by Dent could go free. Batman didn't check his pulse, he had no way to be sure that Dent was dead. There was no body shown at the memorial for Dent. So it makes perfect sense that Gordon would have gotten Dent the help he needs in Arkham while letting everyone think Dent is dead.

By bringing Dent back, introducing initially as a psych patient at Arkham, Nolan gets a chance to mention his confidential past where he did suffer from schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder with psychotic breaks.

Also Two Face is way too intersting and way too important a charater in the batman mythos to have been killed off in less than a half hour. There is a lot of room in Two Faces development. In one two face story arc, he develops a third personality unknown to the first two, that of justice, to right all the wrongs in the world. That would make for a great story arc. Two Faces existence becoming known, the mob getting retrials only to be hunted by two face's third personality - justice, and batman and possibly even two face getting retribution would all make for a compelling story in the third film.

Lastly, it seemed to me that in Batman Begins the league of assasins actual motivation for destroying was barely touched upon. This wasn't a big issue, as the league of shadows is no where near as major a part of the batman mythos as two face, but a bit more emphasis on the fact that they are essentially terrorists, who oppose technological progress or who wish to rid the world of all it's filth, and destroy the cities that are corrupt beyond repair, would have been good. If the league of shadows was to make a return in Batman 3, with their motivation further explored, it would make for a very fitting conclusion to the trilogy, and would make for a fantastic trilogy. Even ignoring the league of shadows entirely, and instead simply delving deeper into the Two Face storyline in the third film, would make for the greatest trilogy of all time, bar none.

Posts: 3669
Joined: June 2009
Two-Face/Dent should not come back. It would completely undo the ending and impact of TDK.

The problem with The Dark Knight is that after all the events that happen in the first 100 minutes... including Rachel's death and Harvey's burning, it just rushed back into more action with the hospital crisis and then the ferry boat crisis. There was nothing wrong with having them, but there could have been a good 15 minutes added throughout that could have made it better.

Idk, i guess I expected to see more of Engel maybe reporting on some sort of clown group causing trouble, more interaction between Bruce, Harvey, and Rachel, more of Gordon and the relationship he has with his unit and the struggle to continue even though he knows there is corruption within it.

Posts: 2
Joined: June 2009
dent going mad made perfect sense to me,remember what joker said about madness "madness is like gravity all it takes is a little push" rachels death was the push for dent, plus joker did the same thing to batman but he did not fall because "he can take it",as for the events happened after the 100 i don't see any problem with it except the fight with the joker it could have been more epic, what really bothers me about the movie is when the bus hits the bank robber it's obvious the it didn't hit him it should have happened off the screen like the rest of the killing in the movie,that's it i don't see any thing else wrong with it.


I've seen it 5 times in the theater 20 times on dvd :D

Posts: 15900
Joined: June 2009
yeah except harvey dent died, in the fall where batman took him down

User avatar
Posts: 3402
Joined: January 2009
You know, I never understood how Bruce found the fingerprints on that bullet in that brick.

I mean OK, he cut out of the wall the brick, he did a laserscan, and... then what? What were those other 4 bricks for, and why did Alfred shoot into them? I saw the movie 7 times, 5 times in theatre, and I still don't understand the method. If somebody does, please explain it to me :D

Posts: 1610
Joined: April 2009
Location: Puerto Rico
Step by step:

1. Batman takes a piece of concrete containing all the pieces of the shattered bullet since that is what he will need at the end.

2. The gunshots were to test different bullet types in hopes of finding what type of bullet was used by (a) matching the hole size made in the concrete and (b) matching the wave patterns between the two blocks of concrete through sonar.

3. Once the bullet type was determined, Fox's new type of sonar imaging was used in visualizing the bullet fragments and allowing them to be recombined to match the known bullet type. (a) Why the image could be gathered at the new Batcave but only be pieced together at Wayne Enterprises is unclear. (b) It is a plot point which allows the sonar device to resonate an image of a fingerprint since the oil found on someone's skin would not be picked up that easily (or clearly) by a soundwave.

4. The fingerprint is matched to all possible suspects who have their fingerprints on file.

5. Of the four, the one they chose (Melvin White) had a known address which was on the procession route for the funeral march.

User avatar
Posts: 3402
Joined: January 2009
Thank you very much :D I think I get it now. It's not that hard, I guess :D

Posts: 4
Joined: July 2009
m3do wrote:dent going mad made perfect sense to me,remember what joker said about madness "madness is like gravity all it takes is a little push" rachels death was the push for dent, plus joker did the same thing to batman but he did not fall because "he can take it",as for the events happened after the 100 i don't see any problem with it except the fight with the joker it could have been more epic, what really bothers me about the movie is when the bus hits the bank robber it's obvious the it didn't hit him it should have happened off the screen like the rest of the killing in the movie,that's it i don't see any thing else wrong with it.


I've seen it 5 times in the theater 20 times on dvd :D

Yes.. this movies perfectly shows whats the difference between Dark Knight and White Knight...A White knight can be corrupted, can be vulnerable....but a dark knight, it cant.. thats why alfred says.. he can make choices which he want...

Posts: 8
Joined: September 2009
I think Harvey should have stayed Harvey for the Dark Knight and just corrupted after the credits or something. Too much arc for two and a half hours in my opinion.

Posts: 72
Joined: March 2009
Am I the only one who hated the two-face? I thought he was rather boring as a character.

Post Reply