Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow is the main villain in the 5th and final Burton/Schumacher Batman film Batman Unchained portrayed by Nicolas Cage. He worked as the Head Psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum and a former Professor of Psychology at Gotham University whom used his patients as test subjects for his fear gas/toxin experiments.
Early Life[]
Prior to being the Head Psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum he was a Professor of Psychology at Gotham University in which he specialized in fear and paranoia. He used some of his students as test subjects for his fear gas experiments which resulted in most of them destroying parts of the university due to the hallucinations that come along with it. As a result of his students hallucinating, he was fired from the university. Some time after being fired from Gotham University, he took Dr. Burton's place as the Head Psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum after he retired since he was good friends with him. As the head psychiatrist, he helped patients return to normal proving to the people of Gotham, the Arkham Asylum employees and his former employers and colleagues at Gotham University that he has turned from his past of experimenting with fear toxins.
Batman Unchained[]
One day he decides to become a villain known as Scarecrow with plans to release fear toxins all over Gotham. He gathers a gang of criminals disguised as halloween monsters to steal chemicals and equipment from Gotham Universities Chemistry department in order to perform fear experiments on his patients. After successfully stealing the equipment and boarding it on the plane and truck, he releases toxins all over the university as pay back for him being fired. Batman, Robin, and Batgirl try to stop them but failed to do so.
Back at Arkham Asylum he was doing fear experiments on his patients and rats in his lab. The patients saw Crane as a monsterous version of himself without his costume and a monsterous Scarecrow with his costume. Some of the nurses and psychiatrists there had concerns over them and Crane but he told them that they were having problems and did whatever he could to help them.
Crane as Scarecrow then raids the mayor's speech and announces to Gotham that he will release his fear toxins all over the city and that they must be prepared for one hell of a night. He tries to get the mayor to allow this to happen but refuses to he releases his fear gas on him making the mayor say yes but is stopped by Batman in the process. He and his gang escape from the public speaking event with the police chasing his gang and Batman chasing Scarecrow but again fails to stop him because his fear gas causes him to hallucinate Scarecrow as The Joker brought back to life. While going back to his other hideout at a satanic church, he is stopped by Nightwing (formely Robin) whom recently helped the police catch Scarecrows gang. He then releases his fear gas on Nightwing whom has hallucinations of his as Two-Face with memories flooding him of the night Two-Face murdered his family. As Nightwing attempts to defeat and wrap him around the tree in a rope as he did to his horse rider, Scarecrow attacks him deeply causing Nightwing to become weak to attack him more due to his memories of Two-Face and the murder of his family.
At the satanic church he and his gang do an experiment and performance on how they were going to release fear toxins all over Gotham, and he discovers the identities of Batman and Nightwing through previous newspaper articles of their parents being murdered, he finds Harley Quinn and teams up with her to put Batman in Arkham Asylum so the whole world will know his real identity. They head to Wayne Manor where Bruce was having a party for his company until they interrupted. Batman comes along and attempts to attack them only for Scarecrow to unleash his fear gas on him and Harley slamming his head with a hammer. They take him to the top of Arkham Asylum where they have him wrapped up in a chair.
Crane's plot and identity as Scarecrow were eventually exposed by the staff at Arkham Asylum and was fired from the head psychiatrist position but him and Harley vanished before being sent to either Arkham or Blackgate but Batman was freed from the employees at Arkham. As a back up plan, he and Harley lure Batman, Nightwing, and Batgirl to an adondoned fairground to trap them. They left Nightwing and Batgirl there while they took Batman back to the top of Arkham Asylum to torment him. Just before they were going to reveal Batman's secret identity to the public through a video, Nightwing and Batgirl crash in and help Batman defeat the villainous duo. Scarecrow then releases his fear toxins all over Gotham with the citizens seeing hallucinations of their nightmares and monsters. With being sick of Harley not listening to him just as she was going to kill Batman herself, he unleashes fear gas on her with poisons to kill her causing her to fall in a vat of poisonous chemicals killing her.
For the last round, Batman throws a batarang at his fear gas weapon to spray the remaining on Scarecrow causing him to see Batman, Nightwing, and Batgirl as a bat, crow, and raven. This causes him to fall from his death to the bottom of Arkham.
Trivia:
- Jeff Goldblum, Steve Buscemi, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif, Coolio, Howard Stern, Robert Englund and Jeremy Irons were considered for the role of Scarecrow before Nicolas Cage was casted.
- In February 2017, Collio stated in an interview that the motorcycle race scene in Batman & Robin was meant to lead him to the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow in Batman Unchained. But him and Joel Schumacher didn't get along very well so he casted Nicolas Cage instead.
- The scene where Scarecrow and his horse rider ride back to the satanic church during the Batman chase was inspired by The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
- He was originally going to appear as a villain in Tim Burton's unproduced third Batman film Batman Continues but was scrapped after Burton left the franchise.