Dark Knight Rises vs Dark Knight?

[vlad321]

d21lewis said:

vlad321 said:

pezus said:

vlad321 said:
Easily Avengers. Batman was absolutely fucking awesome and badass and everything. However Come on... All these themes were explored in Watchmen (book, but the movie too I guess). Superheroes that are mortal and not really super? What they would do to save people/punish evil doers (Let's face it Rorschach completely and UTTERLY obliterates Batman when it comes to this). It's just been explored and done before already. You want to make a serious movie that explores serious areas? Well prepare to be compared to other mediums as well then.

Meanwhile you have The Avengers. There are no themes, no motifs. There's just badassery, fucking aesome, fucking awesome badassery, etc. It also has a few laughs here and there. Also did I mention fucking awesome?

I don't see anything that even compares to the modern Batman films, however Avengers has been done before and that was called Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Hulk etc. 

So... Have you actually read Watchmen? Because, as I said, it basically explores the same areas as Batman, but better. Also not it hasn't. I remember a very distinct lack of Hulk in the Thor movie, and a sorely missing Thor in the Iron Man movie, etc.

So, are you talking about themes or characters or what?  Because I've read Watchmen and watched the movie and I didn't see Batman in either.  I didn't see an intimidating foe (Ozymandias was more of a "Phantom Menace"), a hero lose everything and everyone around him, or a city lose everything,  in Watchmen.  Yeah, Watchmen was about a bunch of heroes coming out of retirement and one of them having a scheme to unite the world but to say it explored everything that DKR did is just wrong.

Who had to overcome physical limitations in Watchment?  Who got raped in Batman?  Who was the person learning to become a hero in Watchmen?  Was Silk Spectre going through the same things as Catwoman? 

And you're comparing the Batman movie to the Watchmen comic?  Does that mean I can compare the Avengers movie to the first few issues of the JLA 1997?  A bunch of unique heroes coming together to topple an alien invasion?  Maybe WAtchmen DID do some things that Dark Knight Rises did but do you honestly think that the story in Avengers was something new and original?  Also, Batman was created in like 1939!  When did Watchmen come out?  If anything, the "Superhero that isn't really super" was something that Watchmen got from Batman and not the other way around!  Yeah, Watchmen kicked off an era of grittiness in the 80's but......let me calm down.

You're free to like what you like more but don't judge one movie by one standard and judge the other by a totally different standard. 

No, Watchmen didn't have any Knightfall pwoerful moments, however it did have the heroes coming to terms with the fact that maybe, the world is fine without them. It also did have the moment where, hey maybe the world is not so fine without them and they have to face to come to terms with helping it it out. Also, if I am not mistaken, the physical limitation in Batman was secondary to his "broken spirit" of a hero, something which the Watchmen were all dealing with. (Though if you REALLY want to split hairs, I'd like to think that Dr. Manhattan had quite the physical limitation to become what he did). It all came down to the idea of a super hero being human. Having human limitations (except for Manhattan), having a human spirit, having to struggle as a human, and trying to coming through and doing something inhuman and saving ungrateful people, a huge chunk of whom shouldn't exist (alright that final part was only heavily implied in Watchmen, but it makes it all the more meaningful I thought).

You can't really compare Avengers across mediums, because the Avengers didn't really try to have any deep thought. It didn't explore certain cases of humans, it didn't try put forth questions. Unless you count "Are humans better off being ruled?" as a valid question, and even that wasn't explored too much. It's not trying to be some original work of art. It is what it is, and I thought I heaped enough adjectives already on what it was. What the Avengers was trying to be it did EXTREMELY well.

I did address why I judge Batman across mediums and Avengers not though, and hence different standards. I thought it was a valid enough point.