Batman 1989 or Dark Knight?

Well, it's always gonna depend on everyone's preferences with how the character and his universe should be approached. Neither are completely faithful to the comics (any one period of it).

To me, both films have structural problems, but ultimately, I think Burton's has slightly more cinematographic merits (I do prefer Batman Returns though, which kind of disregards the comics entirely, but is a hell of a visual and atmospheric experience). Nolan's style isn't particularly appealing to me, and his ham-fisted writing style makes the over-exposition of ideas tedious to follow. His Batman scripts are stuffed with ideas, but the execution doesn't quite work for me.

It all comes down to how the director chooses to convey the film's concepts. In TDK, the Joker literally spells out that he's Batman's opposite (as if anyone hadn't noticed...), and the film keeps hammering us with long monologues so that there isn't much left for the audience to understand by themselves.

Whereas in Batman Returns (less so in the first one), Burton was able to show (and not tell) that Wayne was an empty vessel awaiting any opportunity to don the cape and cowl. I always loved how powerful one scene in the beginning of the film was, with Wayne waiting alone in the dark, and literally rising up from the shadows when the bat-signal appears in the night sky. There's no words spoken, but we get how far gone the character actually is, and his whole psychology stems from that idea.

As for the Joker comparison, I guess I like both actors, but Ledger's wasn't very funny.

My favorite Batman film is, by far, Mask of the Phantasm. Awesomeness on every level.

Personally I'd go with Batman Begins as a better comparison to 1989 Batman (as you see Wayne embracing who he is becoming).

In any instance though 1989 is surpassed by BB and TDK because, 1989 Batman (as much as I loved it before) barely looks like it escaped being shot in Pinewood Studios and it just doesn't feel like the characters truly live in the world created around them.

I think Nolan’s Gotham looking like any US city was the point. As he put it, Burton’s Batman was an extraordinary character in an extraordinary world, while his Batman was an extraordinary character in an ordinary world. That was the basis of his own concept of Batman. I’d suggest most of the groundedness or so-called realism people see in the Nolan films comes not from his portrayal of Batman but the way he establishes Gotham in a wider world that is recognisably our own.

e_e wrote: »

One of the things that took me right out of Burton's movies (especially Returns) is how Gotham feels like little more than a city square.

Yeah, it feels more like a village than a city.

I felt the same way about the Narrows in Batman Begins. As atmospheric as that kind of claustrophobic sound stage environment can be, it just didn’t blend well with the rest of the film. Nolan wasn’t entirely happy with how it turned out either, hence the greater use of real locations in TDK.

It's always gonna depend on which comics. Miller made it pretty clear in TDKR that Wayne is in limbo until becomes Batman again.

Clareman wrote: »

Didn't Killing Joke have a back story of the Joker being an engineer with a pregnant wife who was dropped into a vat of chemicals by Batman? Red Hood was involved in it as well, I think

Yep. Joker was Red Hood. But he also said that if hes going to have a past he likes it to be multiple choice