Batman Begins or Iron Man

[Leenie]

Um, I've changed my opinion since my last post.

I'm pretty sure that I prefer Iron Man over Batman Begins now.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Iron Man is just so good at starting a franchise, introducing a world to a relatively unknown and unpopular character, and being fun while not going for mindless that it has to be my pick.

 

[Bubonic]

LMAO!! what?


I'm sorry when it comes down to Batman Begins or Iron Man I doubt thats the case. They are not thought-provoking films....I could understand if you said that about Iron man vs 2001: A space oddesey (which I do happen to LOVE ...but yeah) but Batman Begins vs Iron man....are you kidding me?

Basically what Trevor Goodchild said.
I wasn't claiming that BB was this fantastically deep and thought provoking movie. Yet I have seem quite a few people interpret it as such, dismissing IM as a goofy kid movie while acting like BB is so much more multi-layered because it is dark and broody.

To inject myself into the conversation:
That's exactly it and you're not fooled by it, which cannot be said about most impulsive teens and fan boys.
Bubonic wasn’t talking about the movies. He gave his views on the audience’s perception and the rationalisation behind their own choice.

Thanks for that.

 

[Bubonic]

Iron Man is just so good at starting a franchise, introducing a world to a relatively unknown and unpopular character, and being fun while not going for mindless that it has to be my pick.

This is also part of my justification for picking Iron Man.
I feel people should take into consideration how much more popular Batman has always been then Iron Man.

Batman was a household name for decades, a popular comic character, a pop culture icon due to the show, multiple movies (a lot of stuff to learn from when deciding to start the franchise anew.)

Iron Man wasn't even on the radar of the average movie going audience, the concept could have easily bombed in the way the difficult Ghost Rider one certainly did.

Yet the casting was perfect, the pacing was great, and despite a few minor flaws it is really, imo, the best franchise starter of any Marvel or DC character.

 

[[A]]

Batman Begins or Iron Man

Tough one. I voted Batman Begins.. but because you have to choose one t:

 

[Dr. Fate]

Can't pick. Both were very good & entertaining in their different ways. Batman Begins being the darker of the two against the more lighthearted Iron Man, BB features a man who has a conflicted sense of morality (wants justice but thirsts for revenge & must reconcile the two conflicting desires) whie IM features a man who initially has no sense of morality until his own brush with death leads him to a long overdue moral awakening.

But that's just me.

 

[Bubonic]

This article has Iron Man winning in the long run so far as trends are concerned.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/happy_superheroes.html

Photo: Zade Rosenthal / Marvel; Warner Bros; Paramount

When a movie is one of the highest-grossing films ever made, you can bet it's going to be widely imitated, so when Christopher Nolan's gritty, serious The Dark Knight shattered box-office records in 2008, Hollywood took notice. In its wake, Fox announced that it would be rebooting the upbeat Fantastic Four series for a take that was "less bubblegum" than its predecessors, director Breck Eisner declared that his version of Flash Gordon would be "intense, aggressive, gritty and real ... it's not camp," and Samuel Bayer defended his humorless remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street by saying, "I'm taking this very seriously. I really do look at a movie like The Dark Knight as an inspiration." The year after The Dark Knight's dominance was so flooded with producers talking up their downbeat new reboots that io9.com cried out, "Please, No More Dark Superheroes." Perhaps the site got its wish: In 2011, caped crusaders are finally having fun again.
Unlike recent heroes who agonized over their calling to help people, this year's superheroes have been eagerly accepting the challenge, from the Green Hornet to Captain America. Their costumes reflect the change: Thor's is as boldly embossed as a Halloween costume (or a Joel Schumacher–era Batsuit), the Green Lantern looks like a glow worm, and though Bryan Singer clothed his X-Men in more realistic black leather — and had Cyclops crack "What would you prefer, yellow spandex?" — the upcoming X-Men: First Class takes a different approach. "The costumes are blue and yellow ... because **** it," explained director Matthew Vaughn. "Let's take it back it the original [comic book]."
Even Marvel, the company that has a plausible, realistic superhero in Iron Man, is starting to introduce magic and fantasy into its continuity. Next year in The Avengers, when Tony Stark fights aliens alongside a Norse God in the hopes of securing a Cosmic Cube, is there really any going back for that character and his formerly real world? Maybe not, but Marvel has concluded that the best thing to do is sincerely embrace that outlandishness, and perhaps that's why Thor (which features a magical rainbow bridge as one of its settings) is cleaning up overseas, while more subversive superhero takes like Super and Kick-Ass struggled to find an audience.
Maybe, then, the tail of The Dark Knight isn't as long as we were expecting. Shortly after that film did boffo business, Warner Bros. president Jeff Robinov told The Wall Street Journal that his upcoming superhero movies would be every bit as brooding. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he said. The following year, WB released Zack Snyder's grim Watchmen, which grossed well under its $130 million budget. The year after that, WB had no better luck with Bayer's Dark Knight–inspired Elm Street reboot, and tabled plans to continue the franchise. This year, their "dark" superhero movie is Green Lantern, a film that boasts a straight-arrow hero, kid-friendly alien sidekicks, and cartoonish special effects (including the huge-headed, villainous Peter Sarsgaard, who's contracted whatever strain of CG-induced encephalitis Helena Bonham Carter had in last year's Alice in Wonderland).
It's true that Nolan has The Dark Knight Rises on deck for next year, but with his trilogy ending (and without the death of Heath Ledger lending a dark pallor over the proceedings), that serious-superhero vibe is about to be crowded out by the would-be franchises that embrace bright colors and family appeal. Maybe The Dark Knight actually wasn't the most influential superhero movie of the last decade: Maybe it was Iron Man, a property that, while realistic, had plenty of room to go dark (in the comic, Tony Stark battled alcoholism, and the movie could have mined Robert Downey Jr.'s real-life drug problems for even more pathos), yet turned out a first film that was fleet, fun, and lucrative. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman has to go into hiding; at the end of Iron Man, Stark proudly tells the world that he's a superhero. Which one would audiences rather be?

 

[El Payaso]

Iron Man.

B Begins was a great promise but its results were a mixed bag. Iron Man was the effective fun movie it promised to be.

 

[Brother Jack]

Batman Begins started the trend of the franchise reboot.

 

[The Demon's Head]

Batman Begins.

Iron Man was Mediocre.

 

[Gold Samurai]

Batman Begins

Things took their time to be established. The pace was better.


Iron Man

Pretty by the book comic book adaptation. Didn't see much of the Mark 3. I think the fighter jet scene ended around 1 hour and 21 minutes.

 

[El Payaso]

Batman Begins started the trend of the franchise reboot.

That a good thing?

 

[gn6196]

Ironman is more valuable because it started off the entire Thor, cap, Avengers franchise.

 

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

I would have to say it's a draw honestly, some people will gravitate towards Batman Begins more and some will gravitate towards Ironman more.

I think for personal reasons, not that one is standout better than the other.

 

[Anita18]

This article has Iron Man winning in the long run so far as trends are concerned.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/happy_superheroes.html

That's like saying The Rolling Stones are better than The Beatles because more bands have been able to sound like the former than the latter.

I actually think that IM will be the new formula for most comic book movies because of the balance of fun and seriousness. I don't think many other comic book movies will be able to do what TDK did, and I don't think they should necessarily strive for it either.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Jon Favereu and the writers of Iron-Man obviously took a good look at what Nolan did with BB when they made Iron-Man.

They kept it all very grounded, and went into great detail, perhaps even a bit too much, on how Iron-Man got his sh** together for the job on a technical level.

I have also always thought the Mk1's appearance was very like Batman's 1st appearance on the docks, coming out of the shadows, scared gunmen not knowing what the hell was going on until it was upon them.

They even gave Stark a frickin computer butler that he could talk to about all his development plans.

Anyway, no BB, no Iron-Man in the way it was presented.

and even apart from all that, I just think BB is by far the better film.
Sure, I have been a lifelong Batman fan, but I don't think that has much bearing here, I think Iron-Man is better than the 89-97 BM films for instance(although...I might, on some days, prefer BF, and that would be because it is the world of BB, whereas IM is the better film).
BB just feels like the more satisfying film, it fills up my belly to the brim with every aspect I could want from a good sh film, or even a film in general. Ok, the finale could be better, but the finale in IM was lacking too, and the one in BB had some more interesting things going on with the fear gas imagery, as opposed the usual type of slugfest in IM.

I must've watched BB around 100 times and still am not tired of it, IM, who knows, probably watched it 10,11,12 times, and can wait awhile until i see it again no probs.

 

[WhiteRat]

Thats easy.the sad truth is till Batman begins came along,there had never been a good Batman movie made,they all sucked.Thank god for Nolan.He redemmed the franchise and made Batman respectable.IronMan got it right the first time around and did not have to redeem itself.

 

[The Joker]

Thats easy.the sad truth is till Batman begins came along,there had never been a good Batman movie made,they all sucked.Thank god for Nolan.He redemmed the franchise and made Batman respectable.IronMan got it right the first time around and did not have to redeem itself.

I assume you hated the Burton Batman movies then?

 

[Iron_Stark]

Iron Man, but not by much.

Although I prefer Begins to TDK.

 

[gn6196]

Both movies had a great cast.

 

[El Payaso]

Thats easy.the sad truth is till Batman begins came along,there had never been a good Batman movie made,they all sucked.Thank god for Nolan.He redemmed the franchise and made Batman respectable.IronMan got it right the first time around and did not have to redeem itself.

The real truth is that Nolan was allowed to make a reboot because Batman had demonstrated to have great movies before.

 

[Pyro Man]

The idea of saying that a film is great because more films imitate it is silly. The Dark Knight wiped the floor with almost every superhero movie from before artistically and at the box office. I don't think that it would have struck as strong a chord with the general public as it did if Heath Ledger's death hadn't propelled people to want to see it. For the most part the multiplex crowd does not like darker films all that much.

As such, its easier to market other comic book movies that aren't dark are more friendly to the mainstream crowd. People want fun movies, they don't want a movie that beats them over the head with its darkness (unless its the cheery pseudo darkness of a Tim Burton film). I was really hoping more serious and dark superhero movies would be released in the wake of Dark Knight, but all we got was Watchmen and that was not too successful.

As for the discussion at hand I have to throw in with Begins. There's just a bit more meat to it than most other superhero flicks. That said, Iron Man is still great and provides an interesting enough character study on top of the action, and its one of Marvel's best films (alongside X2).

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

The idea of saying that a film is great because more films imitate it is silly.

If you are referring to my post, then you didn't understand it at all.
I was just saying how I thought BB was a big influence on IM, and even said that this was besides the point, before going on to say why I preferred BB.
So, I wasn't saying that was why it was great per se. edit: although, I do of course think that some of the ideas that were imitated were great ideas.
Please don't call my posts 'silly' unless you really have something on me in that regard, because you are just going to make yourself look like an attention seeking fool otherwise.

There were obviously some ideas about it's approach that the makers of Iron-Man thought were good enough to imitate, in order for the movie to be taken more seriously.

Like, I can imagine back in the day(let's say, the 90s), they would have just had a perfunctionary montage with Stark making up his Mk2/3 armours before flying off into adventures, instead of taking the time and effort to show all his experiments and shoptalk in that regard. ie they thought Nolan brought more validity to BM by showing his thought processes and preparations in detail, so attempted to bring that 'realism' to IM, so people could buy into the 'out there' idea of a sh. It's presentation says it wants it to be taken more seriously than the average sh film.

I don't even think that influence benefitted IM that much, in fact, if you had read my post clearly, you can see that I said I thought they had even spent a little too much time on that.
They did a little on BB too, by the time he is putting the last touches on the batarang and telling alfred why he dresses up like a bat, you are pretty much thinking, 'any chance you could stop talking about it all the time, and suit up and do the Batman thing we are all waiting on please mate.' and then that is the point where you do finally see him in action. So, they pushed it about as far as it could go.

edit: so, I do think it did have some great ideas that IM took influence from, but BB better executed them, cause I never really got bored during Batman's origins and prep at all, whereas in Im, I don't think it is as interesting seeing the armour building scenes, I don't think the character development is as interesting either.

another thing that Bb is better at, is presenting the reality of situations, let's compare the scene where Bruce enters Ras temple, those bad guys who come out of the shadows, man, they feel like heavy mfs that you do not want to mess with. They feel real.
In Iron-Man when the terrorists enter the cave to chastise Stark and his helper, well, really they just feel like what they are, a bunch of actors playing tough guys, there is no heaviness to them at all, they feel like stock villans from any old action film.

 

[El Payaso]

The good thing is that IM didn't take forever to explain every single device in Iron Man's suit as BB did.

The other good thing is that, after all the preparation, when we finally get to see the character in action, we do see him, unlike BB.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

The good thing is that IM didn't take forever to explain every single device in Iron Man's suit as BB did.

The other good thing is that, after all the preparation, when we finally get to see the character in action, we do see him, unlike BB.

Well, I thought the 'striking from the shadows' scene on the docks and all the similar action at Arkham were much more entertaining than the Iron-Man action scenes. Same with the scene with the Scarecrow and the Tumbler chase.
It's just personal pref in the end, they are very different kinds of action scenes. But, Batman's presence is very apparent in those scenes, even if he is kept to the shadows.
but ofc ours eyou do need the scenes with Batman very much onscreen, so we got the interrogation under fear gas scene, the bats from Year One, the tumbler chase, you did need that.

edit: I will say though , that the v first scenes with Iron-man in the Mk3 armour were very satisfying, in a way that I felt cheated out of when i first saw Batman Begins, as i was wanting the perfect martial artist Batman fighting onscreen finally, but they have still to achieve that, but he did get the 'creature of the night' act down very well, so i give him kudos for that.

edit: and as for the origin aspects being pored over in detail, well, there were many different faceats to Bruce becoming Batman, finding the Tumbler, realising why he needed some kind of glider/cape(the great 1st scene with him and Gordon), all the training at RAs temple, building the persona of the spoiled playboy...
Whereas with Iron-man, it was a bit more one note, a lot of armour building, I mean, we see him building 3 diff armours, it can make the film a little tedious for the rewatches in that regard.