The Dark Knight Rises Was A Superior Movie To The Avengers (Assemble)

Issues With The Avengers I reject the claim that Rorschach is the main character of Watchmen, as among other people, Nite Owl, Silk Sceptre, and especially Dr Manhattan all play significant roles in terms of the plot. And I'm not attempting to claim it is the same movie as Avengers, only that it has that kind of structure. And yeah, the Avengers had movies centring on the individuals prior to the movie while Watchmen didn't, but that's hardly a surprise and it's an unfair comparison. The Avengers is part of an expansive Marvel universe, Watchmen is a 12 chapter graphic novel. Likewise, Avengers was made with a bigger budget, so again it's an unfair comparison to say it had bigger stars. Watchmen also had characters who had, as Con says for the Avengers, "epic heroic moments to shine". Note I'm not disputing that Avengers is a landmark movie by any means, I purely mean that in terms of the dynamic it's far from unique as Con would like to claim. Watchmen even had inter-protagonist squabbling, and there was still a deeper plot there than the Avengers. Con complains about me calling The Avengers movie "basic" with the justification that prior movies set the characters up. However, I believe that any particularly effectively great sequel should be able to have you connect with characters who have very clear depth within the movie you're watching even if you haven't seen all or even any of the prior movies. I can watch DKR and get emotionally invested in Bruce et al because the movie makes strides to make me care about them, even if I hadn't seen any of the prior movies. Avengers, aside from a few little scenes, can't say the same for its characters. It's also disingenuous for Con to claim it took five movies to set up the characters for the Avengers. Aside from Nick Fury's cameos and brief appearances by Coulson, the most any main character in the Avengers could claim to have had before was 3, and Tony Stark's other appearance was a very small at the end of the credits of The Incredible Hulk. Otherwise, each of the other characters only have one, meaning that they all have less development than Bruce Wayne, QED. Con claims Hawkeye wasn't wasted, and yet he really was. Yes, he gets to serve Loki and be dangerous, but he gets absolutely no dialogue during the time he's brainwashed. Contrast that to when he's fighting on the side of the heroes and is producing great one-liners and being incredibly witty. Not utilising the full talents of a multiple time Golden Globe and Academy Award nominee in Renner absolutely IS a waste. Con makes the charge that stories have to be about something (I totally agree) and that having the villain be the centre of the story can only lead to bad results. To counter, I present "The Dark Knight" where the Joker played a highly central role in the story. Sure, it certainly isn't "all about the villain", but that was never something I advocated. I am fine with internal conflict in movies. But just as a villain should not dominate a movie, neither should a movie be dominated by internal conflicts that veer away from the villains, otherwise you get dross like almost the entire Twilight saga. I understand completely the egos involved in the fights, and I enjoyed them. But you CAN have too much of a good thing. You can enjoy chocolate cake each time you have it, but you don't want it for the majority of your meals otherwise you get sick of it. Avengers ought to have balanced the whole "internal conflict vs battling the villain" scales in their movie far better than they actually did. Con claims that Loki getting constantly beat down makes it a better movie than DKR. Frankly, I'm not buying it. Perhaps I ought to have emphasised this: Loki is meant to be a God. As a God, we should expect considerably better in terms of what he achieves than what ends up actually happening. DKR builds up the hero and supporting players as well, and still manages to provide greater enhancement to its villain when the time comes for the villain to be put to the test. Again, what did Loki achieve? He brought a generic forgettable alien force to New York and conquered it for mere hours. Bane conquered Gotham, released the prisoners that had been quite clearly built up both in this movie AND in prior movies in the trilogy, cut some badass speeches, and ruled over Gotham for months and months, so that when the time came to overthrow him, it felt considerably more epic. As for Loki, I think the theory about his capture is far-fetched, since if Loki wanted Thor to capture him, why engage in such a major scheme when all Loki would need to do is kill a bunch of random people, pretend to lose to Thor, and then get taken to Asgard via that way? Such an argument is counter-productive because even if Loki and Thanos do not see humans as a threat, there's absolutely no reason for them to involve SHIELD and others in their plans when it only increases the risk that other humans will find out about their scheme which would be completely unnecessary. With just Thor beating Loki, no-one else would know what would happen, and plus if Thanos knew his aliens would be defeated then he'd risk doing massive damage to himself with regards to how his allies would see him via sending the aliens to die en mass. There'd be no need to involve the aliens when the same ends could have been achieved without their presence. The aliens were not built up at all. They didn't even have prior movies to give them build-up that other supporting characters did. All they amounted to was just a really forgettable force of evil that could have been easily replaced by something like Loki utilising Tony Stark's spare Iron Man outfits or stealing the serum used on the Hulk and infecting the populace with it to create an army for him in either of those ways. As for Maria and Erik, I'm not asking that they dominate screen time, just that they amounted to more than just non-descript henchpersons. Avengers managed to get this right for Coulson, and yet they didn't for their other supporting cast members. Gordon in the hospital bed personally contributes to Bruce's decision to become Batman again in the wake of the horror Bruce feels about the state Bane put him in. He also serves as a really useful guide to the resistance against Bane in Gotham, since it would be unreasonable to demand that none of the events of what was occurring should have been shown. There's also the sheer sense of brotherly trust between Batman and Gordon, as well as Gordon's emotion when he finds out who Batman really is. As a defining figure of Gotham, he's absolutely integral to the plot. Con doesn't address the parts in the Avengers that never really go anywhere (Loki in Germany, SHIELD's ambitions with the Tessarect). I would argue that the plot for Captain America was indeed poor, as it didn't really tap into the sentiment of the 1940s which is a shame because it wasn't just a comic movie, it was a war movie and great war movies do that. Rebuttals continued against Con's R3: 4) Loki doesn't have an altered voice because funnily enough he doesn't wear a mask and he's not known for wearing one. Using the term "gay" as a slur does nothing for my opponent's argument and this should be considered irrelevant. Bane doesn't have the super-steroids because Nolan wanted the DK trilogy of movies to be more realistic, hence why fantastical elements got removed. Bane DID get training from the LoS, as mentioned by Talia, it's just that Ra's then exiled him because he got reminded too much of what happened to his daughter. 5) There is no rule saying a super hero movie should be restricted in terms of what it's about. Indeed, Con's own arguments praising the internal conflict in the Avengers proves this, hence my defence of DKR's plot stands. The line Con references means that he is regarded as the saviour of Gotham, and thanks to his efforts Gotham can now self-sustain. Sorry for R2.