@Nex:
You might want a better word choice, as this kind of makes your whole argument laughable.
Especially if you're going to label Nolan's Batman as such. After all, he was anything but. He was full of hope for Gotham and its people the entire time. He was down on himself at the beginning of Rises, but that was over with pretty quickly.
Are you going to argue semantics? You know what I mean. The whole dark, dreary, bleak tone with grey filtering and dramatic scores out of a Ridley Scott movie.
@Nex:
But why is Superman all of that?
Because that's his character.
@Nex:
Is he just perfect and happy-happy-joy-joy right off the bat. Of course not? It makes perfect sense for an origin story to explore what makes Clark Kent into Superman. So that naturally means there will be some struggle along the way. It would do the character harm if there was no path for him to follow; if he just one day woke up and was the Ideal.
Character conflict is fine and even encouraged. Again, look at the Captain America movie. We had all that PLUS a fun, adventurous, light-hearted tone.
@Nex:
Now, if I remember correctly, you are a huge fan of The Avengers, am I correct?
Hahaha, you're really butt hurt over Avengers being such a better movie than DKR if you're bringing it into the argument.
@Nex:
And while I loved that movie, you just summed up all of its flaws
.
That it was pretentious shlock with an overbloated plot, unmemorable characters, terrible writing and rehashed themes that didn't go anywhere? Nope, don't think those were its flaws at all.
@Nex:
What was the story of the Avengers? "Loki, working with some mysterious beings, want to take over the world, and a group of superheroes from different walks of life have to learn to work together to stop him and save the world." Why does Loki want to conquer earth? Who knows.
Because he has an inferiority complex about having to surrender the throne to his brother compounded by the fact that he's actually adopted, born from the mortal enemies of his adopted race. He's a character who craves to rule because of not really having a place in the world and people to call his own which is really his personal tragedy.
@Nex:
Why do these aliens want the Cube? No answer given for that, either.
It's a container of massive amounts of energy. Any race would want it. Fucking humans wanted it. Also, sequel.
@Nex:
It's all very simple and very bare. I doubt anyone would argue that, though. They'd say it draws its strengths from its characters.
Here's what you apparently can't understand. In film, there is a thing called tone. In a movie like Avengers, you roll with the more far-fetched elements of the film because the strength of the movie is the characters and the sense of adventure. In a movie with a darker tone, the strength of the movie is the drama and the story. Which is why when stupid shit happens in a movie like say as an example DKR (of which there was aplenty), it's much, much worse because it's a movie that claims to be a paragon of masterful writing when the stuff that happens in it wouldn't fly in a Saturday morning cartoon hence pretentious.
@Nex:
So lets looks at those characters. Which of them grow during the course of the movie? Which of them have really changed by the end. Most would jump straight to Stark, due to the whole sacrifice thing. I'd disagree, because Stark was ready to sacrifice himself in Iron Man one to save the day. He was always the guy to make the hero play. "We'll they learned to set aside their differences and work together." Did they though? Would they have come together had Fury not used Coulson's supposed death to push them? And what about Banner and Thor, why did they suddenly jump on the bandwagon?
The easy argument to make is that all of the characters changed in their respective movies, that's where they grew. Which is absolutely true. So why make the Avengers? Why are we invested in these characters in the context of the most successful super hero movie of all time?
This sounds like a bunch of nit-picking and over-thinking for a movie that doesn't require it. I mean, I could argue on how you're wrong and your analysis of the characterization is linear and amateurish (trust me I could, does Stark's character development of willfully sacrificing his life amount to nothing because of a reckless plan he concocted in desperation long ago, why did Thor want to fight his brother, why did Banner want to atone for his actions and use his power for good, did the characters really set aside their differences when the movie shows them setting aside their differences like Fury's little ploy somehow negated their motivations and development, are you really asking these questions?) but we'll just get in an endless argument about characters which is really tangential to the main argument. In a light-hearted movie, if the characters are likable and engaging and have a decent amount of spotlight and development and the cast is well-balanced, that's enough. When you're going dark, those emotional conflicts and character growth and strong writing have a much bigger role. And again, from my experience, writers try to hard in being dark and not enough in writing a story that supports the lofty goals that such films have. Avengers didn't pretend to be something it wasn't. Which is more than can be said for films made by Christopher Nolan.
@Nex:
My point is, these issues can arise with any movie. They're not inherent to "dark" films.
And my point is, it's much worse when it happens in dark films.
@Nex:
Last I heard, he didn't say that. All he said was a "maybe" that's probably not in perfect context in the trailer.
I don't care if it only came off that way due to editing. The sheer fact that they implied it in their trailer is so exaggeratedly dark and dramatic. It eels less like a genuinely sincere scene of character conflict and more like a ploy by the advertising team. "LOOK AT US, WE'RE SO DARK AND EDGEY, COME WATCH US!"