The Dark Knight (2008) vs Avengers: Endgame (2019)

[Saitou Hajime]

Apples and oranges IMO. It's like making me choose between Steamboat/Flair or Taker/Shawn.

 

[Rocanrol]

Pfff Endgame is not even the best film in the MCU.

It’s like comparing The Wire with Law&Order.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

Pfff Endgame is not even the best film in the MCU.

It’s like comparing The Wire with Law&Order.

I don't think TDK is the best Batman film either though. Not that it matters much since these poll results have no relevant value anyway when it's all subjective.

 

[Rocanrol]

I don't think TDK is the best Batman film either though. Not that it matters much since these poll results have no relevant value anyway when it's all subjective.

For me it absolutely is. Far from perfect but it plays its strenghts really well.

Which one is it for you, out of curiosity.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

For me it absolutely is. Far from perfect but it plays its strenghts really well.

Which one is it for you, out of curiosity.

Batman Begins. I think Batman is a more compelling character there and that Ra's al Ghul is better written as an antagonist than the Joker (not as charismatic or fun though). I also like Scarecrow better than Two-Face and somehow Rachel was better with a worse actress playing her. It's not as ambitious as TDK but I think it has a higher degree of success in being what it tries to be.

 

[Predator jp]

thought third act of Endgame is a drab looking mess.
imo third act of IW is way better in every way, you can see everything clearly, the fights are varied, etc.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Third acts of Endgame and IW:

Those films made me realize I don't need more superheroes.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

Third acts of Endgame and IW:

Those films made me realize I don't need more superheroes.

Endgame looks more like this:

 

[FunkMiller]

I don't think TDK is the best Batman film either though. Not that it matters much since these poll results have no relevant value anyway when it's all subjective.

Batman Begins is the better Batman movie. The Dark Knight is the better movie. Both are tremendous.

That’s the way I’ve always regarded them.

Its a trend here on these forums. Has been since 2008. Every time any remotely popular CBM is released, doesn't matter about the style, tone, whether its an origin movie, a sequel, the conclusion of a trilogy, the tenth movie in a franchise, a huge superhero ensemble etc, it gets pitted against TDK to see if it can topple it on the popularity poll.

Often by folks who - for one reason or another - don’t like the The Dark Knight, and the fact it’s still the gold standard.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Often by folks who - for one reason or another - don’t like the The Dark Knight, and the fact it’s still the gold standard.

Yup, and the ironic part is every time they do that, it reinforces the fact that The Dark Knight is still the greatest comic book movie of all time in a lot of peoples minds.



For the record, aside from parts of the final fight, Endgame has not aged well with me. I don't think it even deserves to be put against TDK or Batman Begins. It's a 3 hour film where nobody talks about anything but cap picking up Thors hammer and Tony dying. Seriously, I never see anybody talk about anything in Endgame other than the final fight. The movie being 3 hours, I feel, was just to make it seem more epic than it really was with stuff that wasn't that important (in my opinion). I like the scenes of Tony and his dad/family, but. I mean I still like the movie, dont get me wrong, but it's not even in the top 5 MCU movies

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

Batman Begins is the better Batman movie. The Dark Knight is the better movie. Both are tremendous.

That’s the way I’ve always regarded them.

I can see your point but while I agree on the Batman aspect I also like Begins more as a film as well. TDK is more ambitious but it doesn't deliver as well on the promise in my view. It should be just up my alley but there are some things that are consistently weighing it down for me.

 

[Predator jp]

For the record, aside from parts of the final fight, Endgame has not aged well with me. I don't think it even deserves to be put against TDK or Batman Begins. It's a 3 hour film where nobody talks about anything but cap picking up Thors hammer and Tony dying. Seriously, I never see anybody talk about anything in Endgame other than the final fight. The movie being 3 hours, I feel, was just to make it seem more epic than it really was with stuff that wasn't that important (in my opinion). I like the scenes of Tony and his dad/family, but. I mean I still like the movie, dont get me wrong, but it's not even in the top 5 MCU movies

for me Endgame is the most disappointing movie in MCU.

 

[Gothamsknight]

for me Endgame is the most disappointing movie in MCU.

It's one of the films where you can strip away the first 2 hours and not miss much. Its one of the reasons I was surprised people were hailing it as a masterpiece. At first, it didn't bother me much but as time went on, and the more I thought about it I started to care about it less. I don't even have much of an urge to see it again.

 

[Predator jp]

It's one of the films where you can strip away the first 2 hours and not miss much. Its one of the reasons I was surprised people were hailing it as a masterpiece. At first, it didn't bother me much but as time went on, and the more I thought about it I started to care about it less. I don't even have much of an urge to see it again.

even the final fight did nothing for me.
it was nothing special compared to the final fight of Infinity War which was far superior in every way imo.

 

[Filmfreak]

I'm on the dissapointed train with Endgame. Infinity is probably my favourite MCU movie, which makes it even sadder that the finale to that saga was pure fan service.

 

[fan4stic]

There are preferences I had for the movie that I think it didn't hit. I wanted causal loop time travel and more than a few things to be done with it. I wanted Cassie to be Stature. I wanted Nebula and Natasha to bond, I think a missed opportunity. I wanted things to be more complicated than snapping fingers again simply. I wanted IW Thanos to be the villain. I wanted Cap to not just go back in time to Peggy. I wanted to see Tony meet his grown daughter in the future. I wanted to see Betty and Jane. I wanted to see a more dramatic characterization of Thor. I wanted to see Bruce come to terms with the childhood trauma of seeing his mom killed by his dad, merging with the Hulk after realizing he had Hulk are the same person etc. Etc.

 

[Doc Samson]

thought third act of Endgame is a drab looking mess.
imo third act of IW is way better in every way, you can see everything clearly, the fights are varied, etc.

Honestly IW blows Endgame out the water. I don't even think it's close.

IW vs TDK is much tougher decision for me, but that said, TDK still reigns supreme...barely.

 

[Fosterson]

It's a 3 hour film where nobody talks about anything but cap picking up Thors hammer and Tony dying. Seriously, I never see anybody talk about anything in Endgame other than the final fight.

I totally disagree that there's nothing good in EG until the third act. I loved the stuff with Tony at the start, seeing him in such a desperate state, and then his argument with Cap. Seeing Tony emaciated and terrified of another showdown with Thanos was great and really showed just what a calamity the Snap was. Cap and Nat's discussion at Avengers HQ was great, as was the stuff with Tony and his family.

As for the time travel hijinks, I really enjoyed Cap vs Cap, the stuff with Tony and Howard and Thor and Frigga. And Natasha's death is heartbreaking and arguably just as sad imo as Tony's at the end.

So I think there's plenty to love in the first two acts of EG. Sure, the biggest crowd-pleasing moments are in the 3rd act but that was inevitable because of the way that EG had to be structured. There HAD to be time at the start where the plot slowed down and we saw the Avengers come to terms with their loss. It would have been downright absurd for the Avengers to immediately recover and transition to another enormous action set-piece right after learning that they had no way to reverse the snap.

I agree that TDK is superior to EG and will gladly say that it is the greatest CBM of all time. However, TDK also had a FAR easier task to accomplish. It only had to tell the stories of a tiny handful of characters, as opposed to wrapping up a 20 movie saga and giving two of the biggest characters in said saga satisfying conclusions. The fact that EG is even remotely watchable, let alone that its actually as good (I would argue great) as it is, is incredible

I personally prefer IW as its definitely paced better, and also (and this is a personal bias) as a Thor fan I far prefer Thor's portrayal in it. But EG is still a remarkable achievement and for me it's definitely in my top 3 MCU movies.

As just a side note, I think an Endgame vs The Dark Knight Rises poll would be really interesting

 

[DA_Champion]

It'd be nice if a regular season and then a playoff of polls was organized to see what people think I'm general. Mostly I see in these polls that TDK beats everything else, which I don't find that interesting.

Endgame is also nowhere near the best of the MCU, it's not even in the top-3 of phase 3. It gives too much screentime to Hawkeye and to Ant Man, and it fails to explore the consequences of the snap. We never see any normal people in the movie, just the heroes. Infinity War, Ragnarok, and Homecoming are each better in my opinion.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I have re-watched both movie season this week and am more than happy I voted TDK.

 

[Doc Samson]

I agree that TDK is superior to EG and will gladly say that it is the greatest CBM of all time. However, TDK also had a FAR easier task to accomplish. It only had to tell the stories of a tiny handful of characters, as opposed to wrapping up a 20 movie saga and giving two of the biggest characters in said saga satisfying conclusions. The fact that EG is even remotely watchable, let alone that its actually as good (I would argue great) as it is, is incredible.

Agree...and disagree. I agree that with everything EG had to juggle, it did a reasonably good job of being good.

I don't think TDK had a super easy task though, considering that BB wasn't a huge box office smash even by 2005 standards. There's a lot of people who saw TDK first, and it's not like B&R had been eons ago, the franchise was still very much up in the air if Nolan didn't stick the landing in TDK....

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Agree...and disagree. I agree that with everything EG had to juggle, it did a reasonably good job of being good.

I don't think TDK had a super easy task though, considering that BB wasn't a huge box office smash even by 2005 standards. There's a lot of people who saw TDK first, and it's not like B&R had been eons ago, the franchise was still very much up in the air if Nolan didn't stick the landing in TDK....

They knew TDK was going to be successful. While Begins didn't kill it in the box office because of what happened with the series before it, it had very decent legs. Most importantly, it was an all time DVD seller. It made something like 210m on DVD. They knew people were going to be showing up for the sequel. That does not change that TDK paid off that anticipation, which was huge.

 

[Doc Samson]

They knew TDK was going to be successful. While Begins didn't kill it in the box office because of what happened with the series before it, it had very decent legs. Most importantly, it was an all time DVD seller. It made something like 210m on DVD. They knew people were going to be showing up for the sequel. That does not change that TDK paid off that anticipation, which was huge.

I always take exception to people saying Ledger's death had a lot to do with him getting the Oscar, there were rumblings of what he was doing almost every other month while filming, the first trailer just cemented that.

I can't say it didn't have something to do with the box office though, at least initially. It went well beyond expectations once people saw it and it gained legs, but I can't attribute that whole phenomenon solely to BB...

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I always take exception to people saying Ledger's death had a lot to do with him getting the Oscar, there were rumblings of what he was doing almost every other month while filming, the first trailer just cemented that.

I can't say it didn't have something to do with the box office though, at least initially. It went well beyond expectations once people saw it and it gained legs, but I can't attribute that whole phenomenon solely to BB...

It was definitely a lot of factors, that sadly being one of them. But it should always be noted that the hype for TDK was there even before that tragedy. Did it add something else to situation? No doubt. Might have taken it from a 8 or 9, to a 10.

 

[Frodo]

Agree...and disagree. I agree that with everything EG had to juggle, it did a reasonably good job of being good.

I don't think TDK had a super easy task though, considering that BB wasn't a huge box office smash even by 2005 standards. There's a lot of people who saw TDK first, and it's not like B&R had been eons ago, the franchise was still very much up in the air if Nolan didn't stick the landing in TDK....

True. Fans tend to forget that WB was developing Justice League Mortal around the same time they were developing TDK . I suspect WB was hedging their bets with Hammer's Batman. Had TDK been underwhelming or under performed, I suspect they would have made Hammer their mainline Batman, and would have ended the Nolan series.

Speculation on my part, but I just don't think it was an accident that they were willing to develop this JLA film with another Batman, and was dependent in large part on that other Batman.