I honestly don't see how anyone could feel this way. The movies aren't that different.

I find it highly unlikely that somebody who hated a movie that much would go and see the sequel -- especially when that sequel had nearly all the same creative people working on it.

However, I'd love to see a detailed analysis of all the deficits that made Begins so bad, and how they were overcome in the second film.

I love these movies nearly the same. I will give the edge to TDK though. Everything is tighter and well-oiled in TDK. Nolan has really found his groove.

Even though I LOVE Batman Begins, some of the editing in the action sequences are overdone and the cinematography of those scenes are clunky. Pull back on those scenes a little bit. Everything was a tight shot.

After one viewing of The Dark Knight, I'd give the edge to Begins. I thought TDK was excellent, but not a masterpiece as some are proclaiming. It's a 3 1/2(out of 4) star movie.

I just feel that Begins has a tighter storyline and I like the epic feel of Bruce training on the other side of the world with the League of Shadows before returning to Gotham(which BTW looked cooler in Begins).

That being said, I didn't truly love Begins til I saw it a 2nd time on DVD. I'm willing to bet that TDK will improve with repeat viewings. So it'll be fun to return to this thread once I have it on Blu-ray.

No contest.

Batman Begins was a great superhero movie.

The Dark Knight is a great movie.

I agree with this 100%. TDK was a good movie, but there were definite issues with pacing, editing and the sound editing/score. It was also much more manipulative in parts, which was not really necessary to build the desired tension (and actually served to take me out of the movie in some spots).

I am guessing I will like TDK more on repeat viewing, but I think it is not nearly the masterpiece of cinema history some are proclaiming it to be in the "heat of the moment."

Begins is mostly a half-biopic of Bruce Wayne (Complete with obligatory romantic subplot) which occurs in the course of over 20-plus years, where as Knight is a full-fledged crime-thriller from start to finish with a strong focus on three characters (Dent,Gordon and Batman) told in what appears to be at least 1 week (Could be shorter if not for the Hong Kong adventure)

As far as good and evil goes, the audience has way more invested in Knight since it's established by the 10th minute of the opening stanza that The Joker will be the central villain for Batman to confront. In Begins, you have to wait til the final 20 minutes for the smoke to clear to find out who's behind everything. And since everyone in Begins (Aside from Bruce,Alfred,Gordon,Fox,and Rachel) is a villain or corrupt, the ladder for Batman to climb to reach the top gets a bit tiresome. There was potential for Scarecrow to be a great supervillain for Batman, but he's just reduced to a 2nd rate henchman. And as far as villains are concerned, no debate is required to explain how much of an impression The Joker leaves on the viewing-audience compared to Ra's Al Ghul.

My other personal complaints for Begins mostly has to do with the backstory. Nothing new or groundbreaking to see in the scenes with Bruce as a youngster. I'm just assuming everyone was just too stoked to see Joe Chill kill Bruce's parents for once. And one widely criticized factor I had was that after such a long build-up of Bruce's combat training, his fighting superiority is reduced to having a shaky cam and flapping cape which leaves about 4 goons unconscious.

From a techincal standpoint, there's a big difference in style. Check out those rampant editing shots which build perfect suspense with the assassination scenes in Knight. Speaking of suspense, it was non-existent in Begins. Sure, one could say that there wasn't supposed to be suspense in the previous film, well, then that counts as a difference. If you want to get more nitpicky with the filming differences, we're treated with sprawling IMAX shots, 360 takes, and musical mixing/editing at it's finest. None of which had appeared previously.

I won't waste time explaining how the performances of Ledger and Eckhart helped elevate Knight to bigger heights, but I want to point out that I'm not anti-Batman Begins. You can search the old thread for that movie and see that I reversed my judgment of that movie when I saw it again on DVD, but in preparation before seeing Knight, I gave it a look and really couldn't help but to just skip through the origin stuff and go straight to Batman's Gotham. So yeah, it looks like I'm back to having issues with it again. But keep in mind that I've (So far) only seen Knight once and can't help but notice the drastic differences between the two movies. There's bound to be more praising dissection of it when I revisit the film again and again. I also knew I was in greater company when I spotted nods/references to film classics like Shane and Chinatown found in The Dark Knight.

BTW, it was great to finally see detective work done by "The World's Greatest Detective" in this installment.

TDK, easily. Begins was my favorite superhero film until I saw TDK. There are certain elements of Begins that keep it from being as good as TDK, like the water vaporizer thing that is in itself a huge plot hole.

I think TDK takes place in far more than a week. Batman breaks Moroni's legs about halfway through the movie, and by movie's end, Moroni's already walking with a cane.

Speaking of that, how much time occurs between the two films? At the end of Begins, Gordon tells Batman about Joker for the first time. He is also seen having an infant in a high chair. But by the second film, he has two children -- the youngest of which (presumably Barbara), is about seven years old.

I would definitely give the edge to Dark Knight. I liked Batman Begins a lot, but I was also a little bored with so much of the origin story stuff. It just felt like we'd seen all of it before, if not in a Batman movie then in a lot of other movies. And the former comic collector in me will come out when I say that I didn't really care for what they did with Ra's Al Ghul. I thought the most intriguing thing about Batman Begins was Scarecrow, and we actually saw very little of him. There was too much origin focus and not enough great villainy. Oh, and then there was the whole Katie Holmes thing ...

My friend always gets mad at me because I tell him that I would still put Tim Burton's first Batman over Batman Begins. He thinks it's blasphemy, but it's really how I feel. The anger it makes him feel is only an added bonus.

Begins was a great comic book movie, but I think Dark Knight upped the ante and elevated things to a higher level. And for what it's worth, this is coming from someone who didn't come out of the theater clamoring for Ledger to be given an Oscar.

Actually, I have a problem comparing the two because they are so drastically different. The tone, pacing, structure, and story telling are incredibly different between the two. The main thing being, Batman Begins was wholly about Batman, The Dark Knight he's almost a secondary character, or at the very least, shares equal ground with everyone else.

IMO, at least.

The Dark Knight by a mile. While I liked Batman Begins, I have the same opinion as Mondo Kane and clckworang.

Two great films. The fact that previous attempts at bringing this franchise to the big screen all fell flat made Begins and Dark Knight all the more satisfying.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Begins. I say this knowing that after repeat viewings, TDK very well might be my answer.

I think a lot of people would disagree about all previous attempts at this franchise falling flat. I know I certainly do. Even many of those who prefer the Nolan films over the Burton movies would disagree with that assessment.

I agree with the original poster: I think Begins edges out Dark Knight.

Just saw Dark Knight yesterday, and while I enjoyed it, it almost didn't feel like a superhero movie to me. It was so grounded in reality that it felt more like a cop movie. I realize from reading the threads here that this seems to be what everybody wants, but personally I like the slight element of fantasy that historically has been assoicated with super hero movies. No, I don't want them to be silly or stupid. But with Dark Knight, it almost could have been Dirty Harry or Jack Bauer chasing down the Joker. Batman almost seemed to be out of place in his own movie. The 1989 Burton film remains my favorite Batman movie.

Going with Dark Knight because it is the one I have seen the most recently.

QFT.

I look at the two as different films; Begins is a Batman film where as TDK is a film about Gotham City. I think TDK is the better made film of the two, Begins is better in terms of Batman.

While I can see that perspective from a general narrative standpoint, Batman is essential to the themes that are explored in the Dark Knight. It would have been an entirely different (and I would argue much weaker) film thematically if it was just a tough cop going after the Joker.

This is a great post, and this is EXACTLY what I wanted in a superhero movie, or essentially a summer movie for a long time. This to me was like watching Heat and instead of having Pacino as the good guy and Deniro as the bad guy, you had Batman and Joker.

My personal opinion of TDK was after the dust settled and everyone assessed the movie, I believe you would have people fall on either side. I think you would have people like myself who want that ultra-realism like TDK, and then there would be a group of fans like Moonraker who think the movie is just too serious.

I don't think either of us are wrong, and I will be interested to see where Hollywood goes with the summer blockbuster. IMO, I don't think they will make anymore movies in this style, because I still think the majority of people won't want this on a regular basis. I personally do, but I always felt I was in the minority, hence why I rarely goto the movies anymore in the summer.

Yes, but for me Dark Knight was almost like a remake of the original DIRTY HARRY movie... with Joker replacing Scorpio and Batman replacing Harry Callahan. (Seriously, go watch the original Dirty Harry if you haven't seen it in a while and see if you get the same feeling). Don't get me wrong, I still liked Dark Knight. And I will buy it on dvd and watch it again and again. But as far as a "Batman superhero movie" goes, I think I prefer Burton's vision.

I certainly get what you're saying, again, if you look at it strictly from a very general narrative standpoint. Obviously, we're just looking at it from different perspectives and will have to agree to disagree.

Yes, in some ways the plot is like Dirty Harry, but TDK has much more depth then Dirty Harry for 2 reasons. TDK had Batman Begins to set everything up, so you didn't have to introduce the character, so the movie gets right into the story. Dirty Harry is about 1 hour and 40 minutes, while TDK is about 2 hours 30 minutes, and because of that it can go past that typical thriller movie, because it gives it time to explore the characters. Now dont get me wrong Dirty Harry is one of my favorite movies, but it doesn't have that depth because it is essentially a basic-thriller movie, but in 1971, nobody had ever seen a Cop who did anything he could to catch the killer, and that is what made so edgy at the time. Plus Eastwood is so fucking cool, that even today he is a better character then most movies have.

The theme of TDK is about choice, and that is why Two Face shows up at the end, he exemplifies the whole movie with that coin. Batman, Dent, Gordon, Alfred, and even Rachel are given a choice in that movie, and they all suffer the fate of their actions, some good and some bad.

Batman 89 has nowhere near the depth that the new Batman movies have, and that is why I essentially love these movies, cause it is more then your run of the milll comic book movie. I dont' show up in the theater to wowed with CGI and cool stunts, I want a good story, good character development, and if the action is great, then that is gravy to me.

Ok for me I give it to Begins and for me if it wasn't for Ledgers GREAT performance it would not be close IMO. The story line,acting and direction was better in the 1st one. Ledger made to movie,I'm not a Ledger fan but I read comic books when I was young(long ago ) and he nailed the joker to a tee! That type of acting is a lost art nowadays IMO. The acting was decent by everyone else and I would have liked for them to explain on how the Joker came to be. I didn't like how they got away from the comic-book look of Gotham(looked like a regular city to me).
For me the TDK started out very slow and started to lose me(I think because the lack of setting up the Joker) and I think what saved it was Ledger and the moral twist to the movie.
I not saying TDK was bad at all but overall IMO Begins was a better movie but MAN what a performance by Ledger! My prayers go out to his family and close friends.

The first one had so many terrible lines...Gary Oldman proclaiming "I've got to get me one of those!" ....the guy at the end telling the audience what's gonna happen if the train makes it to the water main "if the train hits, blah, blah"

What I liked in this film is they actually found a legit reason to use the Tumbler. The chase scene is sooo much better in this film. In Begins...he could've saved Rachel in a Lamborghini.