Replacing Max Shreck with Harvey Dent in Batman Returns

[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!

[johnnygobbs]

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!

As a narrative concerning the rise and fall of Harvey Dent, I really like your synopsis.  I like his background (i.e. the abusive childhood which forced him to commit murder, and how it contrasts with Bruce Wayne's similarly traumatic background, albeit one in which Bruce was at least blessed with two loving and caring parents for the first few years of his life).  I also like the idea of Selina as Dent's assistant, as it suggests a more idealistic background for her, as opposed to working as the 'executive assistant' (I mean secretary...) of a corporate bigwig.

But I still think your ideas would work better for an alternative Batman Forever, or even as a subplot to Batman Returns, as opposed to the central story.

There isn't really a big existential baddie master-scheme, akin to The Penguin planning to kidnap and drown Gotham's firstborn, and when that fails, destroy all of Gotham with rocket-carrying penguins.  It reads more like a fascinating psychological arthouse-style story, almost akin to say last year's The Joker, as opposed to a blockbuster action/adventure film (which is great in its own right, but wouldn't really have worked for a 1992 summer tentpole CBM).  Dent is also much more sympathetic than Shreck, and arguably too conflicted to be consigned to the 'Big Bad' role, in contrast to the odious Max Shreck.  Selina's decision to get revenge on Max feels much more of a righteous crusade against a cold-blooded capitalist overlord than it would had she instead sought out to avenge Dent, who comes across as a similarly tragic and damaged victim of abuse as opposed to a truly loathsome monster.

That's why Shreck was such a great character (although I'd have preferred it if Daniel Waters had instead incorporated Rupert Thorne or a another pre-established comic-book character in the corporate baddie role - someone like Marlon Brando, Brian Cox or Brendan Gleeson would have been perfect in that role).  He's the one Batman Returns villain who doesn't have a truly tragic background (it is suggested that he is a self-made man, and we also learn that his wife is dead, albeit possibly at his own hands, but compared to the film's other main characters, Bruce, Oswald and Selina, Max is relatively 'normal' and fairly angst-free), and thus he is the one character in the film that is perfectly okay for us to despise and anticipate his downfall.

Still, I do like many of your ideas, even if I think they work better as a side story to the main action, leading up to a cliffhanger in which Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face and thus the main villain in Batman 3/Batman Forever.

Maybe Dent, rather than the mayor, is the one who is blocking Max's power plant scheme, and maybe it is Max, in conjunction with The Penguin and his goons, who conspires to have him killed (except his 'accident' doesn't finish him off, but simply leaves him physically and mentally scarred), and perhaps Selina is 'killed' because she was the one who uncovered Max's plan to murder Dent.  Even better, perhaps Selina was a plant in Max's office, and was in fact working as an informant for Dent who had his suspicions about Max's criminal activities, and when Max discovered this, he pushed Selina out of his skyscraper building.

[Silver Nemesis]

This sounds like as good a way as any of replacing Shreck with Dent. But at the end of the day, I think having Penguin, Catwoman and Two-Face in the same film would have been too much. You can get away with having Shreck in the movie along with Penguin and Catwoman because Max is a fairly shallow character compared to Oswald and Selina. He has few emotional drives beyond greed and self-preservation (he also loves his son Chip, but that love is only really expressed in one scene). Dent is far more layered and complex. You could have a movie with just Two-Face and Penguin, but then you'd lose Selina, the best part of the film. Alternatively you could have Two-Face and Catwoman, then save Penguin for Batman III.

At any rate, I don't think replacing Shreck with Dent in Batman Returns would have worked. Not unless they'd heavily restructured the narrative and bumped one of the other larger-than-life villains into the next movie. But that's just my two cents.

[Dagenspear]

As a narrative concerning the rise and fall of Harvey Dent, I really like your synopsis.  I like his background (i.e. the abusive childhood which forced him to commit murder, and how it contrasts with Bruce Wayne's similarly traumatic background, albeit one in which Bruce was at least blessed with two loving and caring parents for the first few years of his life).  I also like the idea of Selina as Dent's assistant, as it suggests a more idealistic background for her, as opposed to working as the 'executive assistant' (I mean secretary...) of a corporate bigwig.

But I still think your ideas would work better for an alternative Batman Forever, or even as a subplot to Batman Returns, as opposed to the central story.

There isn't really a big existential baddie master-scheme, akin to The Penguin planning to kidnap and drown Gotham's firstborn, and when that fails, destroy all of Gotham with rocket-carrying penguins.  It reads more like a fascinating psychological arthouse-style story, almost akin to say last year's The Joker, as opposed to a blockbuster action/adventure film (which is great in its own right, but wouldn't really have worked for a 1992 summer tentpole CBM).  Dent is also much more sympathetic than Shreck, and arguably too conflicted to be consigned to the 'Big Bad' role, in contrast to the odious Max Shreck.  Selina's decision to get revenge on Max feels much more of a righteous crusade against a cold-blooded capitalist overlord than it would had she instead sought out to avenge Dent, who comes across as a similarly tragic and damaged victim of abuse as opposed to a truly loathsome monster.

That's why Shreck was such a great character (although I'd have preferred it if Daniel Waters had instead incorporated Rupert Thorne or a another pre-established comic-book character in the corporate baddie role - someone like Marlon Brando, Brian Cox or Brendan Gleeson would have been perfect in that role).  He's the one Batman Returns villain who doesn't have a truly tragic background (it is suggested that he is a self-made man, and we also learn that his wife is dead, albeit possibly at his own hands, but compared to the film's other main characters, Bruce, Oswald and Selina, Max is relatively 'normal' and fairly angst-free), and thus he is the one character in the film that is perfectly okay for us to despise and anticipate his downfall.

Still, I do like many of your ideas, even if I think they work better as a side story to the main action, leading up to a cliffhanger in which Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face and thus the main villain in Batman 3/Batman Forever.

Maybe Dent, rather than the mayor, is the one who is blocking Max's power plant scheme, and maybe it is Max, in conjunction with The Penguin and his goons, who conspires to have him killed (except his 'accident' doesn't finish him off, but simply leaves him physically and mentally scarred), and perhaps Selina is 'killed' because she was the one who uncovered Max's plan to murder Dent.  Even better, perhaps Selina was a plant in Max's office, and was in fact working as an informant for Dent who had his suspicions about Max's criminal activities, and when Max discovered this, he pushed Selina out of his skyscraper building.

I think Shreck and Dent all thrown in with Oswald and Selina is a lot.

But also, I think Selina's reasonings being less justified can showcase the darker side of her revenge.

The idea here, as well, is that the movie would basically be as is, with the Shreck stuff reworked to fit the Dent plot, not taking out the Penguin stuff. The Dent stuff is apart of the story.

This sounds like as good a way as any of replacing Shreck with Dent. But at the end of the day, I think having Penguin, Catwoman and Two-Face in the same film would have been too much. You can get away with having Shreck in the movie along with Penguin and Catwoman because Max is a fairly shallow character compared to Oswald and Selina. He has few emotional drives beyond greed and self-preservation (he also loves his son Chip, but that love is only really expressed in one scene). Dent is far more layered and complex. You could have a movie with just Two-Face and Penguin, but then you'd lose Selina, the best part of the film. Alternatively you could have Two-Face and Catwoman, then save Penguin for Batman III.

At any rate, I don't think replacing Shreck with Dent in Batman Returns would have worked. Not unless they'd heavily restructured the narrative and bumped one of the other larger-than-life villains into the next movie. But that's just my two cents.

Two-Face isn't really a main villain in this movie. It's a set-up for the character.