Avengers 1-4 vs The Dark Knight Trilogy

[BatLobster]

Joker is meant to be a force of nature in TDK. The film has many of the trappings of a crime epic, but it's still a superhero movie at the same time. Which means it's still a heightened reality where crazy stuff (although nothing overtly supernatural) can and does happen. If I can buy into the verisimilitude of a guy in Bat-suit waging a one-man war on crime, I can do the same for a guy in clown makeup manipulating people, taking over the mob, improvising his plans and getting places (and people) rigged with explosives.

I still think the realism aspect of those films is often misread by some. It was never supposed to be about explaining every nook and cranny in detail and proving "this could actually happen". It was about grounding enough of it in a cinematic reality more akin to other action/crime films that the larger than life characters and events are juxtaposed against that and carry more weight. While Begins did go through a lot of effort to make Bruce's transformation into Batman seem very credible, I think this was more of a foundation for the rest of the story to stand on than anything. It set the tone for what kind of Batman world this was. I'm sure if the Nolans wanted, they could've done the entire movie from The Joker's perspective and have it read as scarily plausible. But him being this unknowable force of nature adds so much to the feeling that he's going to be near-impossible to stop for Batman and Gordon. I think they did a great job of keeping the grounded tone, but also not demystifying too much.

I mean, we see Batman perched up on some ridiculously high skyscrapers in the films. We don't need to see the laborious process of him using his grapple hook repeatedly, or whatever, to get to those spots.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Joker is meant to be a force of nature in TDK. The film has many of the trappings of a crime epic, but it's still a superhero movie at the same time. Which means it's still a heightened reality where crazy stuff (although nothing overtly supernatural) can and does happen. If I can buy into the verisimilitude of a guy in Bat-suit waging a one-man war on crime, I can do the same for a guy in clown makeup manipulating people, taking over the mob, improvising his plans and getting places (and people) rigged with explosives.

I still think the realism aspect of those films is often misread by some. It was never supposed to be about explaining every nook and cranny in detail and proving "this could actually happen". It was about grounding enough of it in a cinematic reality more akin to other action/crime films that the larger than life characters and events are juxtaposed against that and carry more weight. While Begins did go through a lot of effort to make Bruce's transformation into Batman seem very credible, I think this was more of a foundation for the rest of the story to stand on than anything. It set the tone for what kind of Batman world this was. I'm sure if the Nolans wanted, they could've done the entire movie from The Joker's perspective and have it read as scarily plausible. But him being this unknowable force of nature adds so much to the feeling that he's going to be near-impossible to stop for Batman and Gordon. I think they did a great job of keeping the grounded tone, but also not demystifying too much.

I mean, we see Batman perched up on some ridiculously high skyscrapers in the films. We don't need to see the laborious process of him using his grapple hook repeatedly, or whatever, to get to those spots.

And this is why I always shoot back at those who say "TDK isn't a comic book movie" when in reality it very much. it's more grounded, but there are still fantastical elements at play. Having the setting replicate our own doesn't really diminish that fact, in my opinion.

Also, The Joker being a force of nature allows the character to be more than just a man, but a symbol of something that exists due to Batman existing. Explaining all of that wouldn't make it feel scary plausible to me, it would actually have the opposite effect. The idea of this unknown and unexplained opposite of Batman being able to always be 1 step ahead creates a feeling of anxiety for me whenever i watch the film. It's brilliantly done, so I never had any interest and seeing how he was able to do these things. I was more interested in knowing how Batman and Gordon were going to somehow put an end to the reign of terror.

 

[Herofan]

Mask of the Phantasm had him willing to give up his crusade to fight crime simply because he found happiness with Andrea. If she had not have left him he'd never even have put the cowl on in the first place.

That was a very risky story choice that worked, wonderfully, in the film because the film was true to, acknowledged how dedicated Bruce was to fighting crime, was conflicted and feeling guilty about not doing so, and made it believable and seem beneficial to Bruce that he would choose to not do so, mostly from how appealing Andrea and Bruce's romance with her were.

The only difference here is the format of the comics and the format of the movies are apples and oranges. The movies are not going to go on forever. They are always going to have their own self contained universes and timelines.

Within the Nolan films themselves it feels very awkward for Bruce to train for so many years and then want to stop after one year (in part because Rachel and her relationship with, effect on Bruce is a lot less appealing to most viewers than Andrea and hers were).

Begins set the idea in motion that Batman's presence would cause escalation in the underworld. He knew that. He expected it. The only thing that threw Batman for a curve was having a criminal like the Joker, who basically shattered his perceptions of criminals. One who doesn't respond to the traditional tropes he was used to. He doesn't fear Batman, he doesn't care about normal things like money, he doesn't play by any rules, he makes the underworld fear him more than they do Batman, what he wants is not what regular criminals want. Batman is a creature of logic. Joker isn't.

What Rachel claims and what Joker claims about Batman are not meant to be taken as absolute truths. They are simply characters speaking from their own perspectives.

TDKR didn't provide any explanation for why there wasn't later general further escalation or why specifically the Joker didn't go on to fight against Batman and try to torment Gotham more. Nolan didn't want to address the Joker's fate due to Ledger's real-life death but given how the character was portrayed and had an impact and especially his last claim that's quite a thing to just not address in a follow-up, especially with the follow-up implicitly claiming that for some reason Joker had no further actions or impacts.

 

[Fincher]

I still think the realism aspect of those films is often misread by some. It was never supposed to be about explaining every nook and cranny in detail and proving "this could actually happen". It was about grounding enough of it in a cinematic reality more akin to other action/crime films that the larger than life characters and events are juxtaposed against that and carry more weight. While Begins did go through a lot of effort to make Bruce's transformation into Batman seem very credible, I think this was more of a foundation for the rest of the story to stand on than anything. It set the tone for what kind of Batman world this was. I'm sure if the Nolans wanted, they could've done the entire movie from The Joker's perspective and have it read as scarily plausible. But him being this unknowable force of nature adds so much to the feeling that he's going to be near-impossible to stop for Batman and Gordon. I think they did a great job of keeping the grounded tone, but also not demystifying too much.

I mean, we see Batman perched up on some ridiculously high skyscrapers in the films. We don't need to see the laborious process of him using his grapple hook repeatedly, or whatever, to get to those spots.

Realism may not have been the point, but the side effect of that approach (whether unintentional or a bonus or whatever) was what made Batman Begins as good as it was for me. If not for that, I would have still liked it but liked it less (like The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, for that matter), and I would have been frustrated by the grounded tone and lost interest in it one movie earlier.

 

[The Joker]

That was a very risky story choice that worked, wonderfully, in the film because the film was true to, acknowledged how dedicated Bruce was to fighting crime, was conflicted and feeling guilty about not doing so, and made it believable and seem beneficial to Bruce that he would choose to not do so, mostly from how appealing Andrea and Bruce's romance with her were.

That is a fallacy. How did it show dedication when he was willing to give it all up without even making any serious attempt to save the city first? All it showed was Bruce was willing to give it up without even trying to make a difference to Gotham, simply because he had found happiness with Andrea. Regardless of how appealing their romance was, the end result is the same. He was throwing away his crusade to save Gotham to go live happily ever after with a woman. Contrast to the Nolan movies, he wasn't going anywhere with Rachel or anyone until he was sure Gotham was saved and didn't need Batman any more.

Within the Nolan films themselves it feels very awkward for Bruce to train for so many years and then want to stop after one year (in part because Rachel and her relationship with, effect on Bruce is a lot less appealing to most viewers than Andrea and hers were).

As opposed to training for years, and then willing to not even embark on his mission as Batman because he met a woman. But to you it felt awkward to train for years, save the city which was the whole entire point of his training to be Batman, and then retire. Sound logic there.

TDKR didn't provide any explanation for why there wasn't later general further escalation or why specifically the Joker didn't go on to fight against Batman and try to torment Gotham more. Nolan didn't want to address the Joker's fate due to Ledger's real-life death but given how the character was portrayed and had an impact and especially his last claim that's quite a thing to just not address in a follow-up, especially with the follow-up implicitly claiming that for some reason Joker had no further actions or impacts.

Yes they did. So did the ending of TDK. They didn't need to address the Joker because it was all addressed at the end of TDK. Joker tried to corrupt the citizens on the ferries into committing mass murder. They didn't. So his ace in the hole was crushing Gotham's hope by showing everyone what Dent had turned into. That was covered up. His heroic legacy was preserved. Joker was defeated. Organized crime was subsequently crushed (half the mob was already crippled as several of them had been murdered by either Joker or Two Face). Gotham went into peace time. No further explanation necessary. At all.

 

[henzINNIT]

Ledger's death gives Rises a free pass on dealing with The Joker.

... but it is odd that someone as slippery as him remained imprisoned for any stretch of time.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

Would the movie have been more entertaining for you if Nolan had showed in detail how Joker went about preparing his actions? Nolan is in the business of entertainment. For this particular movie and this particular character Nolan's approach worked. The Dark Knight wasn't a deep character study of the Joker character like Todd's Joker was, so the character could occupy a more traditional position where he is off to the side but his presence lingers throughout the whole movie. The things he does aren't even that outrageous, especially for a comic book movie or even just an action thriller. He rigs a bunch of things with bombs. I can think of some explanations as to how he did it, and they sound painfully boring in my head and I wouldn't substitute a single scene in TDK for them.

I have no idea how anyone manages to rig pretty every room in an entire hospital with a significant amount of explosives without anyone noticing. No one even notices after they learn that a hospital is rigged. I don't know how he managed to get such a huge amount of explosives on ferries that run all the time without anyone noticing either.

The point isn't that I want to know how that was done, it's that they should have him do things that he could conceivably pull off so I don't get taken out of the movie by instinctively reacting to the absurdity of it within a movie that has that kind of tone.

Of course it's not just those huge things either. The police being consistently incompetent and making stupid decisions, The Joker making detailed plans that rely on the timing of things that he can't control and so on. It starts already in the first scene where both civilians and police act irrationally. The post I responded to said that TDK is a crime movie and I pointed out that crime movies tend to have tight scripts, while TDK has plenty of things that fall apart as soon as you put any thought into it at all.

 

[Fosterson]

Ledger's death gives Rises a free pass on dealing with The Joker.

... but it is odd that someone as slippery as him remained imprisoned for any stretch of time.

My assumption is that they pretty much locked him up and threw away the key, keeping him under heavily-armed guard at all times, and never letting him out of his cell, not even for exercise, and simply passing meals to him through a gap in his cell door. They would also have been foolish to have repeated the same mistake the Gotham Police did in letting an officer remain in his presence for any lengthy period of time.

 

[Greens]

In the run-up to the release of TDKR I thought it was kind of stupid when it came out that Joker isn't mentioned once in the film, but in hindsight Nolan did a pretty good job of continuing his spirit through the Dent reveal. The connection to BB could have been a lot better, but I appreciate how Nolan tried to tie everything up with the first two movies. There's no excuse for Talia, though. That sucked.

 

[KBX]

Dark Knight Trilogy is probably going to be the standard for a while, but it’s a testament to Feige and company the Avengers are in a discussion.

 

[Awest66]

The post I responded to said that TDK is a crime movie and I pointed out that crime movies tend to have tight scripts, while TDK has plenty of things that fall apart as soon as you put any thought into it at all.

The Dark Knight may be a crime drama but it's still very much a superhero movie and as such, it still abides by similar genre conventions and rules.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

The Dark Knight may be a crime drama but it's still very much a superhero movie and as such, it still abides by similar genre conventions and rules.

That's really something you need to address the one I initially quoted on though. Although even regarding more gritty and realistic superhero stuff I think Netflix' Daredevil is better written in regards of making sense. Kingpin actually feels intelligent and the things he does are presented so they at least feel relatively plausible. He doesn't need the police to be incompetent.

 

[Awest66]

That's really something you need to address the one I initially quoted on though. Although even regarding more gritty and realistic superhero stuff I think Netflix' Daredevil is better written in regards of making sense. Kingpin actually feels intelligent and the things he does are presented so they at least feel relatively plausible. He doesn't need the police to be incompetent.

Care to actually name some examples of the police being "incompetent"?

 

[Adhesive Boy]

Care to actually name some examples of the police being "incompetent"?

It's already been discussed in the thread so it can't be hard to find. Better to read that so we don't have to repeat the same things over and over. If the discussion can't proceed forward it has no use.

 

[Awest66]

It's already been discussed in the thread so it can't be hard to find. Better to read that so we don't have to repeat the same things over and over. If the discussion can't proceed forward it has no use.

If were talking about Joker holding Stephens hostage? I wouldn't call that stupidity, that's more down to his abilities as a manipulator.

 

[Lantern Venom]

If were talking about Joker holding Stephens hostage? I wouldn't call that stupidity, that's more down to his abilities as a manipulator.

Not to mention the movie previously showed people underestimating the Joker's hand-to-hand abilities. He goaded Stephens into a fight because Joker knew that he could get the upper hand in that type of situation. He didn't just get lucky.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

If were talking about Joker holding Stephens hostage? I wouldn't call that stupidity, that's more down to his abilities as a manipulator.

There are many cases of it in that movie where bad police work is what makes the Joker escape or have success with plans. It also has plenty of non-police act irrationally as well, but that's just jarring and not really what would stop the Joker. One case of something odd doesn't matter, but when it consistently builds up it becomes an issue.

And yes, him even getting the chance to hold him hostage is utterly incompetent. You'll never see a single policeman locked into a cell/room with an unrestrained, dangerous prisoner. The policeman isn't even safe from the prisoner just rushing him. What's worse is that there's no actual benefit to being inside either so they risk the safety of one of their own for nothing. As with plenty of things in the movie it just happens because The Joker needs it.

 

[Awest66]

There are many cases of it in that movie where bad police work is what makes the Joker escape or have success with plans. It also has plenty of non-police act irrationally as well, but that's just jarring and not really what would stop the Joker. One case of something odd doesn't matter, but when it consistently builds up it becomes an issue.

And yes, him even getting the chance to hold him hostage is utterly incompetent. You'll never see a single policeman locked into a cell/room with an unrestrained, dangerous prisoner. The policeman isn't even safe from the prisoner just rushing him. What's worse is that there's no actual benefit to being inside either so they risk the safety of one of their own for nothing. As with plenty of things in the movie it just happens because The Joker needs it.

As stated before many times on this thread, The Dark Knight is still a superhero movie as much as it is a crime drama. The Joker is not the kind of villain you'd usually find in the sort of crime drama you seem to be thinking of, He doesn't care about money or power, He just wants to cause chaos. Honestly the Joker having elaborate plans and outsmarting the police is a staple of that character no matter what medium he's in and I find it more than a little unfair that you're attributing all of his successes to "incompetence", Do you think he succeed everywhere else because the police are "incompetent"?

You're Daredevil analogy also really doesn't work for me at all considering Joker and Kingpin are too completely different villains who want completely different things.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

As stated before many times on this thread, The Dark Knight is still a superhero movie as much as it is a crime drama. The Joker is not the kind of villain you'd usually find in the sort of crime drama you seem to be thinking of, He doesn't care about money or power, He just wants to cause chaos. Honestly the Joker having elaborate plans and outsmarting the police is a staple of that character no matter what medium he's in and I find it more than a little unfair that you're attributing all of his successes to "incompetence", Do you think he succeed everywhere else because the police are "incompetent"?

You're Daredevil analogy also really doesn't work for me at all considering Joker and Kingpin are too completely different villains who want completely different things.

The problem is that he isn't outsmarting them. He's doing things that would logically get him caught, or at least foiled, but he succeeds because of plot armor. We get a dose of it already in the first scene where not a single civilian seems to react that someone backed a bus into a bank, and the cops can't even figure out the correlation between a bus sized hole in the bank and the school bus they just passed that was covered in dust and debris and won't get far because of slow city traffic. It's the kind of plan you'd expect to see in the 60s TV show where dumb camp was the point. It goes from things like this all the way to that no one noticed that he rigged every room in an entire hospital with explosives while it was active, and they can't even figure out that he did it even after they learned that a hospital has been rigged. Laughable.

It doesn't matter that Kingpin and Joker aren't exactly the same, they are still comparable in terms of writing. The show and TDK have similar tones and you see how one takes care to actually write the villain as intelligent and making logical plans, and the other just making whatever they want happen regardless of whether it makes sense.

 

[fan4stic]

The problem is that he isn't outsmarting them. He's doing things that would logically get him caught, or at least foiled, but he succeeds because of plot armor. We get a dose of it already in the first scene where not a single civilian seems to react that someone backed a bus into a bank, and the cops can't even figure out the correlation between a bus sized hole in the bank and the school bus they just passed that was covered in dust and debris and won't get far because of slow city traffic. It's the kind of plan you'd expect to see in the 60s TV show where dumb camp was the point. It goes from things like this all the way to that no one noticed that he rigged every room in an entire hospital with explosives while it was active, and they can't even figure out that he did it even after they learned that a hospital has been rigged. Laughable.

It doesn't matter that Kingpin and Joker aren't exactly the same, they are still comparable in terms of writing. The show and TDK have similar tones and you see how one takes care to actually write the villain as intelligent and making logical plans, and the other just making whatever they want happen regardless of whether it makes sense.

I'm willing to admit TDK lines up rule of cool, instead of applying real world logic, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that from this world, that had the microwave emitter thing and I think that these aren't necessarily strong criticisms.

1. Even they saw it and cared, I don't know what they could or would do about it.

2. The bus was already on its way down, before the cops got there, and that's assuming they'd know it's a bus shaped hole right away, which I don't think is a certainty. I think, if I remember correctly, the dust and debris had fallen off enough they wouldn't necessarily notice.

3. That, to me, is going more for rule of cool in how the explosion happens, so I don't necessarily know if we're supposed to automatically think he loaded up every room. But I wouldn't count on those explosives being set as it was active or that they'd necessarily have found it, after Gordon gave the order to evac everyone out of gotham general.

I also think Kingpin's goals are less entertaining, to me, in season 1, and his what he does less kooky. I don't think the Joker operates the way Kingpin does in this movie, as a character. I wouldn't call the Joker logical as a whole.

 

[Babillygunn]

It's already been discussed in the thread so it can't be hard to find. Better to read that so we don't have to repeat the same things over and over. If the discussion can't proceed forward it has no use.

I don’t think the police are shown as incompetent. They were either corrupted or lazy. Not Gordon, but virtually everyone else on the force. And that really is more realistic than we would care to believe.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

I'm willing to admit TDK lines up rule of cool, instead of applying real world logic, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that from this world, that had the microwave emitter thing and I think that these aren't necessarily strong criticisms.

1. Even they saw it and cared, I don't know what they could or would do about it.

2. The bus was already on its way down, before the cops got there, and that's assuming they'd know it's a bus shaped hole right away, which I don't think is a certainty. I think, if I remember correctly, the dust and debris had fallen off enough they wouldn't necessarily notice.

3. That, to me, is going more for rule of cool in how the explosion happens, so I don't necessarily know if we're supposed to automatically think he loaded up every room. But I wouldn't count on those explosives being set as it was active or that they'd necessarily have found it, after Gordon gave the order to evac everyone out of gotham general.

I also think Kingpin's goals are less entertaining, to me, in season 1, and his what he does less kooky. I don't think the Joker operates the way Kingpin does in this movie, as a character. I wouldn't call the Joker logical as a whole.

1. For example, you'd not have traffic moving along calmly like nothing happened and you'd have witnesses that could further point out where the bus went.

2. If you don't think it's odd that one bus is covered in dust and debris and think that it may have something to do with the big hole in the bank you're probably not even averagely gifted, let alone fit to be a police officer. Driving a school bus in mega-city traffic isn't going to outrun anyone for that matter. It's just a thing fitting the 60s TV show that the police would be dumbfounded because of something like that.

3. It's certainly not even remotely close to looking like demolition charges that collapse a building, so he must have used an insanely large amount of explosives. It's the same thing with the ferries as well. Somehow the Joker manages to get tons of explosives onto them, while they are in regular traffic, without anyone noticing anything. I think I'm being very reasonable in my criticism as I don't even go into how getting that much explosives tends to set off terrorist flags with a bunch of organizations. No one notices either The Joker or anything he does.

If The Joker wasn't logical he'd rather be acting without detailed plans. He'd in fact have to be extremely organized to even come close to achieving some of the things he does, even if it should be impossible to actually pull them off successfully as it's described. So he is very clearly intended to be highly intelligent, he just isn't written that way successfully. Wilson Fisk however is.

TDK used to be a candidate for the dumbest movie that some people tried to pass off as smart, but since Snyder and the weirder side of his fans came along that can't really be argued anymore.

I don’t think the police are shown as incompetent. They were either corrupted or lazy. Not Gordon, but virtually everyone else on the force. And that really is more realistic than we would care to believe.

They aren't meant to be because we're supposed to buy that the police eradicates organized crime in the city. It's just that whenever we actually get to see them in actions they tend to be idiots.

 

[Babillygunn]

If The Joker wasn't logical he'd rather be acting without detailed plans. He'd in fact have to be extremely organized to even come close to achieving some of the things he does, even if it should be impossible to actually pull them off successfully as it's described. So he is very clearly intended to be highly intelligent, he just isn't written that way successfully. Wilson Fisk however is.

TDK used to be a candidate for the dumbest movie that some people tried to pass off as smart.

This statement that TDK is “the dumbest movie” is very extreme and displays an extreme lack of objectivity. Sure the movie has some scenes and plot devices which are naturally unrealistic, but not many people are going to agree that even the sum of these parts make TDK “the dumbest movie” this side of Zack Snyder films.

And comparing Joker to Kingpin is a strange comparison. One character represents anarchy and chaos whereas the other represents absolute control. Kingpin seeks to mold the world to the image he desires whereas Joker doesn’t want the world to have a discernible image at all. They are polar opposites. And in my subjective opinion, both were done very well and were successful Portrayals.

I’m sure that you will post that I am wrong and that DC=bad and Marvel=good, but that is unfortunate.

 

[The Joker]

A bunch of dust briefly comes off the back end of the bus. Why would that bring all the traffic there to a stand still? It comes and goes in like 3 seconds. Its just some dust. People may well think its a bit odd, and in hindsight they would probably put two and two together what happened there when they find out about the robbery, but in the moment it wouldn't bring traffic to a stand still or have people go running to flag down Cops. Its just some dust coming off a bus.

As for how did Joker get explosives into a hospital or on the ferries. He's got Cops delivering taunting messages in envelopes to Judges right before he blows them up. He's got people able to get into Commissioner Loeb's office in City Hall of all places to poison his personal bottle of booze in his desk drawer. We are told the mob has people in Dent's office which is how they knew in advance about the marked bills. They are afraid to put Lau in County because they know he wouldn't last two seconds. They have Cops deliver Harvey and Rachel to Joker's men. The movie makes it clear that the corruption is literally infiltrated everywhere in Gotham. The mob jumped into bed with the Joker out of fear and desperation. You're wondering how Joker managed to smuggle explosives into a hospital or the engine room of a ferry with the level of corruption the movie displays.

Furthermore why do you assume this was done on the spur of the moment, and not all done progressively days in advance? Because Joker says he's not a schemer and therefore could not have mapped all this out beforehand?

As for Police incompetence, there is literally only one instance where what the Police do, that's the honest Police, that could be considered questionable. And that's Stephens being alone in the interrogation room with Joker. But even that I can let slide. Joker had already been stripped of all weapons, he was unarmed, and he was sitting on the floor across the room. Stephens was likely armed, and his only fault was taking Joker's bait to get him to lose his temper and attack him. But again Joker's so good at getting under people's skin. Its something they lifted from the comics, too;

 

[Adhesive Boy]

This statement that TDK is “the dumbest movie” is very extreme and displays an extreme lack of objectivity. Sure the movie has some scenes and plot devices which are naturally unrealistic, but not many people are going to agree that even the sum of these parts make TDK “the dumbest movie” this side of Zack Snyder films.

And comparing Joker to Kingpin is a strange comparison. One character represents anarchy and chaos whereas the other represents absolute control. Kingpin seeks to mold the world to the image he desires whereas Joker doesn’t want the world to have a discernible image at all. They are polar opposites. And in my subjective opinion, both were done very well and were successful Portrayals.

I’m sure that you will post that I am wrong and that DC=bad and Marvel=good, but that is unfortunate.

It's not very fruitful to talk about objectivity when you quote me while cutting off a very important part of the quote.

It's not a strange comparison at all as I'm not comparing goals, I'm comparing the writing of their actions and how they affect the surroundings because they are set in similar tones.

As usual it seems like criticizing TDK is a very sensitive subject, both in arguments and how people keep piling on.