Better Trilogy: TDK or Captain America?

I disagree on quite a few things here. The Dark Knight is still better than Winter Soldier,(The climax with the boats is way more intense and nerve-wracking than WS's everything explodes finale and the Joker is vastly superior to all of HYDRA) and Civil War. Civil War is in many ways more the Avengers 2.5 than Cap's movie and it's often cited that Tony Stark is more the main character than Steve himself. Batman Begins very easily blows away the First Avenger.

 

I thought in TDK, Batman was 100% worthless. couldn't save rachel. Couldn't save Dent. He didn't really stop the Joker, the joker was just wrong about the people on the boats. TWS much like all 3 Cap films has a heart and sincerity that's far more endearing than anything in the TDKT. The only thing in TDKT tgat comes close is Alfred. Also, Avengers 2.5 is such a lazy description. It's still very much a Cap film as narratively he's the central and main character. BB doesn't really do anything that hasn't already been done before. It's crowning achievement is that it gave back to batman movies credibility but 1st Avenger did a far better job in realising the source material of a character during a time that was particularly had for a Cap film to be remotely good. The Cap films beat the breaks of the TDKT easily.

 

Unpopular Opinion, but I actually like Cap 1 better than Civil War. I'd say Cap 2~Cap 1> Cap 3. While TDK~ BB >> TDKR.
I'd rank the movie like this: TDK ~BB>Cap 2~Cap 1>TDKR>>>>>>Civil War

Don't like CW that much

 

Captain America is not a Trilogy. It's an MCU movie.

 

Regarding not stopping the Joker, that is totally untrue. Batman very much did stop the Joker. Joker was going to blow up both of the ferries if one of them didn't blow the other one up by midnight. He even pulled the detonator out and was about to push it when Batman stopped him. Not to mention Batman saved all the Hospital hostages in the Prewitt Building situation. He saved Reese. He saved Gordon's son. He ultimately stopped the Joker from crushing Gotham's spirit by taking the blame for Dent's crimes. 100% worthless, yeah right.

There's a thousand and one CBMs out there where the hero gets a flawless victory against the villain with no real losses. ZzzzzzzzzZ. Lets see a villain who can actually hit the hero where it hurts. The fact there was causalities to Batman's victory (Rachel, Dent, his rep as Batman) adds to the brilliance of TDK. Batman won, but it came at a cost. And since he was facing the Joker it shouldn't have been done any other way. The Joker is Batman's greatest enemy, and has made him suffer more losses and tragedy than any other villain. Nolan would have done his job wrong if Batman walked away from his battle with the Joker without taking some heavy personal damage.

As for Batman Begins, it did far more than bring Batman back from the cinematic ashes. It was the trend setter of the reboot craze. Its also inspired so many movies in how to handle superhero origin movie, including in the MCU e.g. Iron Man;

Jon Favreau: Interview - Time Out Film

And movies outside the CBM genre, e.g. Casino Royale;

`Casino Royale` screenwriter Paul Haggis confirms `Batman` influence

As for the source material argument, even the people who write the Batman comics think that not only did Nolan do it right, he did it well;

'Batman' Comic Writers Agree: Christopher Nolan 'Got It Right'

'Dark Knight' Origins: Filmmakers, Stars And Comic Creators Explain Their Take On The Well-Known Characters

'Arkham Asylum' Scribe Grant Morrison Opens Up Heath Ledger's Joker Diary

 

But it has both Captain America and Iron Man pretty much ignoring, in the debate about whether UN supervision should be trusted and submitted to, that SHIELD was an organization they did trust and go along with and that had a lot of good people doing good work and yet also very bad people having and seeking worse impacts and terrible ends.

 

You just described Cap's stance in the film. He's against the accords just because of what happened to SHIELD and the lessons he learned from that, so he thinks that the smaller circle of people is safer. Stark on the other hand feels so much guilt over what has happened because of him that he's willing to accept the risks, so there's a clear reason why he's "ignoring" it. Both have valid points, as just as well as one can question putting trust in the UN one can even more easily question trusting a small group of powerful beings doing whatever they want. The question of who should govern the Avengers is one to which there isn't a clearly right answer.

 

He found Dent, saved him from turning to complete toast. And he saved a bunch of innocents from being shot by SWAT, and then stopped Joker from blowing both ferries up after seeing neither is willing to blow up the other side by knocking him off.

And Batman saved more people before that, including the reputation of the white knight of Gotham who was about to shoot a man in a dark alley.

 

All he said was the somehow obvious yet also extreme view that any group or organization can have an agenda or bias, an organization having an agenda or biases is a pretty mild expression of the experience that even a mostly-good and trustworthy organization can also be too corrupt and have terrible impacts. And while the expression is weak the reaction is very strong, that that an organization may have biases means you shouldn't submit to any authority.

Well the last time he was feeling guilty and/of fearful, which was even closer to the SHIELD reveal, his attempted solution program created a worse problem (and a lot of the anger from the governments and publics) so it was pretty hard for me to take him or his position seriously, there should have at least been calling out that trying to get quick fixes in the past made things a lot worse.

It was like Steve and Tony were made really extreme and unreasonable so the audiences would accept that they felt they had to fight each other.

 

What he said communicated everything that you said in your previous post.

What you're saying about Stark is the entire reason for his stance. He's desperately tried to prevent catastrophe but has caused a lot himself so eventually he reaches a breaking point and accepts that he needs to be held accountable by someone.

Both characters are very emotionally driven by their experiences which always makes people less reasonable. They certainly aren't entirely unreasonable by any means though. Cap is driven to action because of Bucky and the threat of what they think Zemo is trying to do, not just by that he refuses to listen.The explanations are there and the subtext you talked about is there. Tony actually does listen and comes to the Winter Soldier base as an ally because he saw merit in Cap's mission. Then if it's not made in a manner that you don't like is fine, it's all subjective.

 

BB>Cap 1 Fairly Close
TDK>Cap 2 Fairly Close
TDKR<Cap 3 Huge Gap

Even though I'd edge TDK 2 out of 3 times, TDKR is clearly the worst of the six overall let alone not even close to Cap 3, that I'd have to give Cap the overall vote.

 

Civil War isn't a Captain America movie. It's an Avengers movie. Stark has as much screen time as Rogers. There's much emphasis on other characters. The movie is laden with contrivances in order for it to work. Even with the problems Rises has, it's easily the better, more engaging film. (Kind of hard to compete with Tom Hardy's Bane, no?)

I'd love to see a proper third Cap solo if Evans is up to it.

 

TDKR in a nutshell.

 

You know a movie is pretty good when you have to make things up to criticize it.

 

Wait, you're right. Evans' screen time is a whopping five minutes over Downey's. Hard to tell, though. Otherwise, it's perfection: script, acting, VFX, cinematography, score, editing, directing. Everything. Move over, Lawrence of Arabia. There's a new Sheriff in town.

 

TDKR is clearly superior to the First Avenger and really not that far off from Civil War honestly (in terms of villains, Bane>>>>>>>>>>>>Zemo)

 

And Batman had almost the same amount of screen time in Batman 89:

Bruce Wayne / Batman <32:30>
Jack Napier / The Joker <32:15>

Are we going to say that wasn't a Batman film? In fact, let's look at Batman Returns:

Selina Kyle / Catwoman <33>
Bruce Wayne / Batman <31:15>
Oswald Cobblepott / The Penguin <29:15>

Batman didn't even have the most screentime here! Let's check out TDK:

Bruce Wayne / Batman <35:30>
The Joker <25:15>

Batman has a whopping 10 more mins than the Joker! Which is only 5 mins more than the Cap/Iron Man disparity. Are we seeing my point? Civil War was a Captain America movie. The entire plot of the movie revolved around Captain America's actions. Iron Man was one of the film's 2 primary antagonists (Zemo being the other) and the other Avengers were supporting characters. But it is still firmly a plot that goes through Captain America, who is the driving force of the movie. All other plot elements are a response to his actions. Which is different from how every Avengers movie operates from a narrative stand point.

 

I never felt that Civil War was anything but a Captain America movie.

 

Actually that is a common criticism against the Burton movies. It was back when they were released, too;



Listing screen time doesn't mean anything because a character can be on screen a lot, but what they are doing in the narrative of the story is what defines their importance. Problem with Batman in Burton's movies is he's mainly just a reactionary character, rather than a narrative driver (especially in Returns). Then you have characters with limited screen time, who help push the narrative and leave a great impact, and sometimes are even the most memorable component of the movie. A great example is The Silence of the Lambs. Lecter has like 12-15 minutes of screen time, but he's the character everyone thinks of when that movie is mentioned.

Conversely its easy to see why Civil War doesn't feel like a Cap movie. No other non Avengers movie in the MCU incorporates so many of the MCU heroes in significant roles, as well as introducing two key new ones (Black Panther and Spider-Man). The narrative may be changed from the traditional one used in the Avengers movies, but its still an ensemble piece of multiple MCU heroes. You're right in what you say that a lot of what happens stems from Cap's actions, but the fact that the other heroes are all heavily involved with their own dilemmas and arcs (a testament to the brilliance of the movie giving so many characters something to do in a large ensemble piece) doesn't change why it doesn't feel like a Cap movie. TFA and TWS were tighter Cap centric tales, with a sharper focus on him, and less on so many other characters. Civil War felt like a journey for multiple key characters. Stark, T'Challa, Romanov, Bucky, Wanda etc. Again not a criticism against the movie. But a good reason why it doesn't feel like a Cap movie.

 

This argument goes both ways. It's not about how much screen time people get, it's about what role they serve in the story. Do I see why people don't think of the movie as a Cap movie? Yes, but it has more to do with people getting lost in window dressing than actually examining the movie itself. Do the characters you name have a lot to do and their own arcs? Yes, but most of the cast of Black Panther have well defined arcs as well, but that doesn't make Black Panther an ensemble film. It's all about what their role is in the story. What purpose they serve. Cap is the focus and motivating force of the movie. Stark is in the movie a lot, yes. But Team Stark's entire role is to serve as opposition of Cap's ability to combat the film's actual threat: Zemo. Everything Stark does in in response to Cap's role in the film. Also notice while many of the characters are in the movie, most of the Avengers have no role after the sequence at the airport. Ultimately after that sequence, these characters largely no longer matter to the larger narrative. There is still like 30 mins left at that point, and none of them make the climax except the most important characters of the film. The film is all about Cap and his choices, and ultimately the film comes down to Cap choosing between Bucky and Tony. It's his climactic choice that the whole film was building toward. Stark just happens to be an antagonist with a lot of screen time and the film just has a lot of supporting characters.

 

@The Joker I don't know. I can concede that it may vary from viewer to viewer, but Civil War always felt like a Cap movie to me considering how little development is occurring for most of the supporting characters save Tony and Bucky. Black Panther was introduced but he felt more like a plot point to give Cap another antagonist and serve as the film's thematic device. You raise fair points, though and Winter Soldier is indeed far more a solo tale for Cap than Civil War.

 

So since the backbone of TDK is about Harvey Dent, does that mean it's not really a Batman movie, it's a "Harvey Dent movie"?

 

No because the movie is about Batman. Joker only became what he is because of Batman and his motivation to corrupt Dent stems from trying to prove he is right and to combat Batman. So no, the film is 100% about Batman.

 

I do not disagree with you that the narrative is ultimately a result of Cap's choices and actions. That's an indisputable fact. But the structure of that serves multiple major characters. Which makes it feel like an ensemble movie rather than a Cap movie.

The difference with your BP analogy is Black Panther is not serving up multiple major heroes from previous MCU movies in big key roles. They are BP characters serving BP's story. Whereas Civil War is a story about dividing loyalties and pitting ideals of different heroes against each other. Again you are entirely correct that it comes from choices Cap makes. But that doesn't change that it is a story serving multiple characters who are major characters in their own right, not supporting cast from Cap's world like BP's were in his movie.

The climax does end as a three way between Cap, Stark, and Bucky. But that doesn't help ignore what the previous two hours of ensemble character narratives were. This is not a criticism. I cannot think of any other CBM that was competent enough to give so many major characters something significant to do and not feel they were just there to look cool. Even the newbies (Spidey and BP) got their serious character moments. But at the end of the day this story structure is what doesn't make it feel like a Cap movie. That was probably intentional. Its called Civil War based on the Civil War story of the comics, which much like this movie was a big ensemble piece of many Marvel heroes.

Really? I thought T'Challa definitely had significant development as he went from angry revenge seeker and foe to Cap, to a helpful friend.

 

What world the characters originate or come from prior to Civil War doesn't matter. They're still supporting characters within the narrative of Civil War who's actions are guided by the decisions Captain America ultimately makes. Yes, Vision and Wanda have their own arcs as to why they should be on side A or B, but the fact they have that choice comes down to the effect Captain America's choices and actions have upon them. They're forced into those decisions by the plot, the same way Sam Wilson was forced into becoming Falcon in TWS or Hulk had to leave Sakaar in Raganarok to join Thor, etc. Fame/loyalty to the character has no bearing on plot or story structure. Maybe it does on the way the audience perceives the movie, as evident in the confusion over the movie, but based on their actual roles in the movies characters like Widow or Vision are exactly the same as Sharon Carter or any other more traditionally thought of supporting character.