re: Rewatched Batman Begins last night

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TDK was great, but Ledger very overrated.

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Both are great movies, but the better villains are in TDK. I hold that Neeson is overrated anyways, but his portrayal as Ra's Al Ghul just seemed liked "Liam Neeson Story Time Hour". He really never brings anything new to the table. And I'm not a Joker fanboy, but just look at everything else that Ledger did and then watch TDK again. Blows my mind. Plus, his over the top nature is more in tune with what I've come to expect from Batman villains. Also, I don't feel enough gets said about the rise and fall of Harvey Dent. He's the focal point of the entire movie, and his tragedy and fall into madness was done extremely well IMO.

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I've never heard a legit argument of Batman Begins over The Dark Knight, despite it being kind of trendy to say.

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What is the legit arguement for TDK over BB?

What I'm seeing is: LEDGER WAS AWESOME(but its not a suck fest because he died or anything ) or

THE JOKER IS AWESOME, JOKER> Ras Al Ghul/Scarecrow. That's pretty much what i get out of this TDK is the better movie argument. so make your case.

I stated why I like Begins better. I like the origins part of the story. I like the focus on stoping the mob and Falcone, which they continued in TDK.

I like TDK, but imo BB is best comic book movie. I'm not a comics reader, so i don't know a lot fo the back stories and while all comics/action movies have some need for suspension of disbelief, i think BB had fewer "yeah, right" type moments than TDK.

The fact that so many of you seem outraged that someone actually likes BB better, it is after all an opinion, is kind of playing into the whole Ledger suckfest angle.

I really and truly enjoyed all three of the movies. In order to really lay an good argument, I re-watched them all last night and I realized why I think the Dark Knight is the best.

Heath himself said it best during the interrogation scene.

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I don't, I don't want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You... you... complete me.

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That's it, really. I understand how dynamic Rises and Begins are as Batman movies, but the villains are what changes the whole situation.

ALL THREE are phenomenal films. Hands down the best superhero movies to ever be released. However, if we want to see Batman, if we want the movie that BEST personifies the titicular character of these films, we need the movie that shows us the true scope of Batman. Rises came close, but without the Joker, I think a good argument could be made we aren't seeing the real Batman. It's not so much Heath (Though, I must say his portrayal is my favorite villain of all time), Its the Joker's character that makes TDK the best.

...Though hell, I'm so torn cause I wanna just say they're all the best.

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That's pretty much what i get out of this TDK is the better movie argument. so make your case.

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What makes TDK so great is that Nolan more successfully distanced himself from making a "comic book" movie (even more than he did in BB). Nolan perfected it while still making a "Batman" movie and TDK will be remembered for this. TDK was a true crime-drama/action-thriller that could've actually been re-worked as a Commissioner Gordon story with no "Batman/superhero" in it at all. It technically then wouldn't need an origins story and could stand-alone. The weakest part of TDK was actually Batman (& his unusually over-exaggerated voice).

Ledger's Joker was a believable lunatic-on-steroids bent on seeing the world on fire for his amusement. Truly scary parts with the knives to the mouths of his hostages. He was like a combination of (Schindler's List's) heartless Amon Goth mixed in with Hannibal Lecter's humor. I actually bought that this deranged lone wolf could manipulate countless Arkham Asylum psychopaths to do his bidding. Where I find ultimately fault with Ledger's Joker (amongst the greatest villians ever) that he is more one dimensional (lunatic-98%-of-the-time) than say Lecter, Vader, or the exorcist girl who at some point expressed some form of relate-able humanity.

However in BB, I didn't believe for a second that Neeson's Ras Al Ghul could out-Ninja Bruce Wayne/Batman. It is also far-fetched that this well-bred Irishman is living part-time like a Tibetan monk/ninja leading a centuries-old DaVinci-Code-esque clandestine secret society that have the resources & karate skills to make world governments topple when they get too big for their britches.

Re-watching BB, I at first liked that he made Gotham unrecognizable from Chicago. But as the movie went on, it seemed caricature-ish like Keaton's Gotham, especially the runaway-train ending. I'm glad Nolan corrected that in TDK and made Gotham a familiar but unrecognizable mega-metropolis. Now Nolan was able to make those epic IMAX helicopter-view shots of the city/cities as opposed to BB's brief CGI city zooms.

As far as the girls, I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. Holmes is prettier & Maggie was slightly more believable, but neither one did I connect with or care about.

It may sound like I hated BB, but I actually loved it, just not as much as TDK which for the reasons above make it clearly superior (for me). It's a brilliant revolutionary trilogy that makes the men-in-tights/superhero movies palatable for a non-comic book but thrill-seeking audience. Nolan wasn't the first to try that, but he was the first to succeed.