re: Almost 28 months later: TDKR vs The Avengers revisited

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you are objectively wrong if you look at the list of all time great movies. simplicity executed well is a much more reliable indicator of success.

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I just don't think that's true at all. Not sure what else to tell you.

yeah, we disagree on a lot

Seems like you acknowledge the flaws of TDKR but hate the Avengers. Doesn't make for much of a discussion. It never does

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simplicity executed well is a much more reliable indicator of success.

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I'd agree completely.

It's kind of the shift of culture though, which is the much more valuable argument over this "film" debate.

We've started to overvalue "complexity," even when it adds little to the table (see Lost. Not that it's bad, just that it's popularity was largely due to the discussions about what was going on). And we've painted that complexity in a few different ways, one is in the Shyamalan/Abrams outlook of mysteries, black boxes, and other ideas that make sure the audience has no idea what's going on until the last frame.

The other is the "good is boring," theme that gets repeated over and over again. It's like culture, probably until the MCU films, had NEEDED dark and brooding characters because they thought they were more "complex." That a true, morally good hero is "boring," because it's easy. Or "simple." That a story about "good guys vs. bad guys" wasn't enough to satisfy.

The came to a head in TDKR and surged forward with Man of Steel, where rather than being morally complex for the right reasons by serving the story, moral complexity was superseded by the idea that anything "darker" is inherently more interesting than something lighter, regardless of the needs of the narrative. That's why things like the sacrifice make little sense. (And Man of Steel made this even more literal with it's palette choice, which to me, has ended up near comical).

That's why TDKR falls apart in the end. It doesn't really earn it's way into BB/TDK territory. It doesn't feel nearly as impactful.

It's not even that people don't get it, it's that they don't want to see it because it isn't cool enough. We're heading back to the nu metal phase people. Slow down!

(I can't believe I brought up nu metal twice. But the idea is that nu metal never really understood what metal is about. They just thought that "heavier=darkier. Yes darkier.)

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I actually don't hate it per se. It's just not a real movie. TDKR at least has the ambition to be something, although it only succeeds partially.

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You're completely misrepresenting my position and putting words in my mouth. It's not boring because it's "too light", it's boring because it's completely formulaic, very poorly acted, lacks any sort of emotional anchor, doesn't attempt to say anything at all, and is written at a 5th or 6th grade level.

Jurassic Park is a great movie. It's well written, well acted, well directed and it makes a comment on both our modern society and basic humanity. And it manages to do all that while still maintaining mass appeal. And it's tone is as light as the Avengers.

You probably think of Jurrasic Park as a "simple" movie, when in reality the opposite is true. That movie got ideas across through its cinematography alone. The Avengers people were too worried about beating us over the head with two dimensional characters and overwhelming action sequences to be bothered with such silliness. It's Transformers with better intellectual property on offer.

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My comment was something in general, in response to mo's comment about simplicity. Wasn't directed at you and didn't mean to put words into your mouth. Just an FYI.
See here:

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It's kind of the shift of culture though, which is the much more valuable argument over this "film" debate.

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As in, this would be a better discussion that we aren't currently having.

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It wasn't JUST about not cloning dinosaurs , it was about our general results driven culture and it's dangers.

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I dunno. I hate to get off topic this far but I think pretty much all life, from single cell organisms on, live in results driven cultures.

I have one complaint in regards to Jurassic park

"King Kong"

Yeah we got it, frick you Jeff goldblum

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DOFP is better than both of them, IMO.

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Now this I can agree with. The last 2 xmen films have been very solid.

This article may add some insight to the conversation.

For me, Avengers was great the first watch, and has held up just fine.

TDKR had potential but too many nagging problems that kept me from loving it. At the top of the list was Bane's voice. It was downright fricking comical. I don't care how jacked you are, when you sound like that, I'm laughing my arse off at you. The whole Bruce in the pit thing, with his 3rd world back alingment thing was just dumb. Also, his escape from the pit could have been handled much better. In my version, after failing to make the jump with the rope around his waste a couple of times Bruce would have been willing to throw all fear aside, remove the rope, leap out for the ledge and miss, begin to fall, and land on an unseen ledge below the first, one that he never would have known about or been able to reach with the rope tied around his waste. The message being that only when we conquer all our fears, remove all safeguards, and risk everything in an ultimate act of faith and desperation, can we truly be free of our fears.

I have a similar re-write for the ending of The Man of Steel....