Whichever one makes more money is better. I see Watchmen getting pwned personally.

Which bit can't you believe? It wasn't a unanimous feeling amongst my friends, but we definitely felt it and definitely don’t work for Warner Bros!

Have you seen either / both? What did you think of them?

You're right of course. I wish I'd thought of this before wasting my time on the OP ;)

I actually thought the opposite. I love The Dark Knight, and still do: it had good pacing, great action scenes (without being TOO over-the-top), decent dialogue, etc.

Watchmen...my opinion is clouded on that one.

I'm sure that if I had just come in without ever reading the comic, I would have liked it far more than I did. I give the director credit for making a huge step up in quality than his previous movie. And the change to the ending was one that I actually thought was fairly fitting and nicely pulled off; I'd imagine it would have much less of a "we must all band together" effect than the comic's version did, but it was also much less...weird.

The problem I have is that I DID read the comic, and it was just far too superior to the movie in every way for me to like the movie as much as I would have otherwise. The movie, understandably, didn't have the time to devote to each characters' psyche that the comic did, but as a result the impact each character is supposed to have is greatly reduced. The movie tells us nothing about Nite Owl or Jupiter's past, it omits large parts of Rorschach's, Manhattan and Comedian get cut (a bit), and worst of all, Ozymandias is never explained. The last one in particular was too bad, because I felt it was one of the comic's most interesting aspects; Ozymandias is a Good Guy who does a very, very bad thing for something he BELIEVES is correct.

I also understand WHY all the side-characters were completely cut (again, time issues), but that did somewhat weaken the story as a result.

Mostly, though, I think I object to the movie's attitude. The comic doesn't hold your hand and spell things out for you. The movie, by contrast, takes a different attitude towards things, and outright says things that were merely implied in the comic. While I suppose I'm making a mountain out a molehill here, I have to say that I hate that: the comic trusts the reader to read between the lines, while the movie thinks the viewer is too lazy to do so.

Oh yeah, and the action sequences in Watchmen were cheesy. I hate wire-fu with a passion.

Overall, the above post makes it sound like I'm much more down on the movie than I really was. I'd rate it a C+/B-, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much better it was than I was expecting. But it wasn't a fantastic movie in my mind, let alone one as good as The Dark Knight.

@ Noname: Hmm. Maybe my opinion was affected by the fact that firstly, I was so disappointed by TDK that almost any decent film was going to seem preferable, and secondly, because I hadn't read the novel?

I didn't feel too lectured about what I was supposed to think and feel, though maybe that's because, since I hadn't read the novel, I didn't have any prior understanding so I needed some things spelt out to me. You seem to be annoyed when they did spell things out and also when they didn't (Ozymandias' motivations)?

I think it's a very difficult balance to strike. For example, I love the film Dune as a film, but hate it as an adaptation of my beloved Dune novel. I hate however, the version which starts with the long voice-over explaining all of the back story but love the version without it, which is probably incomprehensible for those who haven't read the book.

I couldn't decide whether Watchmen would've worked better as a series of films rather as one long one. Overall I don't think it would have been an improvement despite the extra material they would've been able to cover as I think it would’ve ruined the film’s pace.

I think you might be right about why I didn't take to Bruce Wayne in TDK, and yet, the Joker, and Rorschach also spent most if not all of their films dressed up and with voice issues and yet they managed to do it charismatically?!

I almost got the impression that Christian Bale didn't really care about his character in TDK and was therefore just going through the motions.

I think you nailed my schizophrenic reaction right here.

I think you'd actually like Ozymandias' story. He does have this long monologue where he explains to Nite Owl/Rorschach his past, and why he thinks he's doing what he's doing. However, there's also this comic (within the comic) that implicitly mirrors his story. I won't spoil it, but suffice it to say that it weaves a tale where a "hero" is so blinded by his fears that he does several heinous things, including murder, to do what he thinks is "right." He ignores and rationalizes facts that contradict his fears, and discovers that in the end it is his own narrow-mindedness that kills his wife, not his imaginary fears. He is, in short, a Good Guy who does very, very bad things to do what he believes is correct (but isn't...). The connection between the two stories is never spelled out (or even mentioned), but it's definitely there.

Argh! I'm babbling now. I'll stop.

I generally tend to believe people with Eraserhead avatars.

I haven't seen either movie. The comparison does not really interest me, as I'm not interested in Dark Knight at all (no matter how good it might be), but I love the Watchmen comic book series and I'll buy the movie as soon as it is available on DVD to get own impressions.

I saw both and in no way was Watchmen better.

TDK was a very good movie. I'm not sure about Watchmen.
You see I had read the novel, so I knew what was going to happen when I got in the threater. I wasn't so much pating attention to the storytelling as I was paying attention to the visuals, the music and the overall style. To me the movie was very good, but I wasn't sure how someone who never read the novel would feel.
It's good to see thar you had no problem following the convoluted story. It makes a hell of a lot more sense if you read the novel.