This is all spoileriffic, but something that should be discussed, because we think some people might have missed the obvious plot-point-plants that change the last sequence of The Dark Knight…

This discussion was set off this morning by looking through Digg and finding our fellow Crave Online movie-badasses Film School Rejects were in the top ten with an article called The Dark Knight: 10 Things I Liked, 5 Things I Didn’t.

Number 2 on the 5 things reviewer Robert Fure didn’t like is:

2. Two-Face Dies. Now this is a comic movie and it’s possible he’s alive and will be back, but I’m not sure if I like the habit of killing off the villains at the end of the Bat movies. Batman isn’t supposed to be a killer and yet in the past two films he’s definitely helped along their deaths, whether by tackling them over a ledge or just refusing to rescue them. Where is the rogues gallery going to be? The morgue instead of Arkham?

So, in response, we want to clear something up: Two-Face isn’t dead. There is absolutely NO WAY that Two-Face is dead.

Nolan’s script has planted hints all through it, telling the viewer that Harvey most-likely survived the fall at the end of The Dark Knight.

1. Maroni was dropped by Batman from a much higher spot and it only broke his leg. Nolan even gave the character dialogue highlighting that someone can’t die from falling from a few stories.

2. Batman also falls and survives. He grunts and seems in pain, for sure, but jointed-Kevlar isn’t exactly going to absorb a significant amount of impact. Scientifically (and this is splitting hairs) Harvey would have had to land on the exposed skull on his Evil Face to possibly fracture his skull and kill him. But, the film makes a point dramatically of having Bats turn Harvey’s head, indicating that he landed on his back, not his skull.

3. No body, no coffin? Not dead. Gordon was dead for about half-an-hour there and we even got to see his wife get lied to in order to “protect her.” After Batman escapes on the BatPod at the end of the film, it makes just as much sense for Gordon to tell his cops: “Give him the Jim Gordon Fake Death Special.”

4. Jim Gordon right to Bats before Bruce takes a jump into the Joker’s final battle: “I have to save Harvey.” And he will, by throwing the mysterious Two-Face in Arkham and telling Gotham what they need to hear: Dent is dead.

5. Batman can’t kill anyone. That’s like, the whole point of the movie, people.