User blog comment:Gammabomb/The Dark Knight Rises needed Joker/@comment-246292-20120819222257/@comment-5346564-20120820063346

I agree, but I dont think it needed to be a physical character. The affects the Joker had on Gotham were too great for his name to be completely absent from the story. In the movies novalization Joker makes a small camio, but its just enough to tie the 2nd movie into the last (aside from Dent and Batman's lie). The novel said this "Blackgate Prision was a maximum-security penitentiary located on one of the smaller islands in Gotham Harbor. Now that the Dent Act had made it all but possible for the city's criminals to cop an insanity plea, it had replaced Arkham Asylum as the preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons. The wort of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate.      Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure."

The movie needed something...even something as small as a laugh in the background of a flashback would have satisfied me.