Ok, I know I'm gonna get this massive wave of TDK hyperfans attacking me, but I honestly want to know how many people here honestly like Batman Begins better than The Dark Knight and why?
My reasons are as follows:
- Story
While I love a good twisty turney suspense film as much as the next guy, I don't like it when a movie like that takes over my Batman flick. And when watching TDK, I get that distinct impression too often. Its like Batman Begins got mashed up with The Departed. The Joker's 'put them in two seperate buildings and tell people where they are so they can watch them die' scheme felt like something from that movie, rather than a Joker scheme. There are other examples.
Batman Begins on the other hand has a very strong storyline that doesn't seem like it should have ended halfway in the middle (when Rachel died in TDK, it really felt like the movie should have stopped there). It wasn't confusing, it was in fact a very logical progression of events and the characters all seemed very much a part of the process.
- Lack of actual Batmanness
Batmanness n: the attribute of acting like the Batman known universally.
Yes I made that up, but I think you get my point.
Tell me honestly, can you really imagine the comic book Batman listening to The Joker tell him those two addresses and just take it on faith that he's telling the truth about them? Whenever I try to picture say, Kevin Conroy's Batman of the Animated Series, in that situation, I cannot see Batman doing that. Gordon would ask, which one are you going after and he'd say "Rachel. She's at [insert the first address]." Gordon would call after him, "What makes you say that?" and Batman would yell back as he's getting on the Batpod, "Its the Joker, it can't be that easy!"
Another case in point, the end hostage scene.
Again, I put Kevin Conroy's awesome Batman in that situation, and what springs to mind is not "You're the one pointing the gun Harvey, so point it at the people responsible." but "You're the one pointing the gun Harvey. Not the Joker. Its your choice now. You told me 'You can't give in.' So why are you?" or something to that effect. Batman seemed altogether too weak and without inspiration in that scene, like he wasn't even really trying.
Batman Begins on the other hand, never has a moment where you turn to the person next to you and say "That...doesn't really seem like something Batman would do..." Instead we get awesome scenes like Arkham Asylum, from start to finish which screams Batman all the way.
-The Joker
I will never say that Heath Ledger did a bad job. His acting was amazing. He embodied the character that he was told to portray.
But that character is not the Joker to me. It just isn't, it can't be. I don't even care about the permawhite/makeup debate. Its not just one thing, its the whole character that I look at and go... "That should be... Elseworlds or something." It just is not The Joker. The Joker is not grungy, the Joker is not dirty. The Joker does not look like he just swam through a dirty river and then rolled in trash.
I could have accepted many of the pieces that made up Nolan's version of the Joker. I could have accepted the scars, I could even have accepted the make up. But all together, these things just make me look at that and go, I do not see The Joker.
Batman Begins features Ra's Al Ghul as its title villain and despite never once mentioning The Lazerus Pits I absolutely loved this interpertration of the character. He's next to perfect so far in my opinion and the essence of the character is transfered right out of the comic.
-Gotham
Gotham City does not feel the same in The Dark Knight. All the buildings have changed, none of the locations are the same. While this usually wouldn't faze me, put together with all the other things, it really sticks out to me that The Dark Knight does not feel like it takes place in the same city we see in Begins. It irks me that the Wayne Enterprises building is gone (despite the huge amount of effort Batman put into saving it in the last film, and for those of you who say "No! Its right there in behind Batman and the Joker when they duke it out!" Sorry guys, watch that scene again, its lit similarly but the building is completely different.) It irks me that the monorail is visible only in the background, and it irks me that the streets and buildings are all different. We don't see the Gotham we got to know in Begins, not even a little bit.
Those are my main reasons for still liking Batman Begins over the Dark Knight. What are yours?
