The Dark Knight(2008) or Apocalypse Now(1979)?

Apocalypse now.

Apoc Now

The Dark Knight. Apocalypse Now is overrated.

I'm with you. I found it boring. I don't really care about the Heart of Darkness ties either that people think is so cool for some reason, since I found that book was kind of boring too.

Apocalypse Now. Maybe if you'd grown up around the time Vietnam was happening AN might have not felt so overrated. I dunno. :)

I know. And people always praise it for being intelligent and profound, but if your movie couldn't engage me, I won't care for the message. Social commentary is made of two things. The message and the way it's delivered. The way they delivered the message here was just action scene after action scene and story in the last 30 minutes. It's one of those movies where the critical response astounds me.

This.

TDK

Is this a serious question?

• I love both, And they were both great films....And both movies have two of some of my all time favorite movie villains, Colonel Kurtz played by the Great Marlon Brando and Heath Ledgers Joker.
• But being a big Batman nerd i gotta go with the Dark Knight..
• And i honestly cant call Apocalypse Now a better movie then the Dark Knight, it maybe somewhat deeper becuase most of the plot and screenplay is based on the Novel Heart of Darkness which is a very thought provoking book, plus how the revamped screen played tied into The Vietnam War.. But that dosent necessarily make it better to me, The Dark Knight in addition to being a vastly more entertaining film was also thought provoking and blended action and Deep Ideas in a much better fashion...Apocalypse Now was a great film, but it was more like a slow dense fog of deep ideas then a edge of your seat thought provoking action thrill ride like The Dark Knight.
• And then theres the fact that i was born decades after the Vietnam War, so idk maybe thats also a factor in why Apocalypse Now isnt more meaningful to me as a film.

Apocalypse Now. No contest.

@jumpstart55:

And i honestly cant call Apocalypse Now a better movie then the Dark Knight, it maybe somewhat deeper becuase most of the plot and screenplay is based on the Novel Heart of Darkness which is a very thought provoking book, plus how the revamped screen played tied into The Vietnam War.. But that dosent necessarily make it better to me, The Dark Knight in addition to being a vastly more entertaining film was also thought provoking and blended action and Deep Ideas in a much better

Thank you for saying this.

I really think we should be praising more movies which can find a healthy balance between entertaining and thought provoking: instead, of praising movies like Arrival, which are 2 hour lectures.

• Yea Arrival didnt really do it for me...And that whole twist was kinda lame and way too cheesy for my taste...The film seemed like it was trying hard to be Oscar bait..The only thing i really liked about Arrival was the cool design of the Spaceships and Alien Creature cloudy crab like designs.
• Gravity was a much better movie..Because like you said, it was a much more entertaining film...
• I think a films actions gets overlooked becuase people are still stuck in that mindset that long, dense subtextual essay like stories are vastly superior to much more simple action tales(Which were generally children's morality tales)...A mindset left over from the Pre Film Era of the 1800s and before that..But thats hardly the case with movies.
• A film isnt a book, its a much more visual experience...Heck, the brain dosent even treat the two activities as being remotely the same..And they should be judged completely different.

Agreed on all accounts. Arrival was visually splendid (with the exception of a muted colour scheme), but the whole thing felt preachy.

I particularly agree with your commentary on the mindset people are stuck in. I think people underestimate how hard it is to craft a compelling action tale film. I'd argue it's more challenging then creating a movie with nifty ideas delivered as a dump of exposition. The alien design and animation was flawless though!

Indeed. I like good stories, but I love movies that take advantage of film as a medium.

TDK..I'm in my 50's so I kinda recall the Vietnam War (My dad fought in it). TDK is still the best superhero/comic movie. IMHO, AN wasn't even the best Vietnam movie of that era. I think "The Deer Hunter", "Full Metal Jacket" and "Platoon" were all better. Of it wan't for the "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" line. I don't think folks would remember much about AN.

AN and TDK actually are very similar movies. You have the crazy villain whose sanity is largely in question and the protagonist whose job is to take down the villain by w/e means they can and who are going down a road of darkness themselves to get to him. I think its just simply a matter of which background you prefer. If you are more into war movies or Vietnam as a backdrop then I think someone would prefer AN. If you are more into comic and Gotham(which is likely on this site) then you'd prob prefer TDK.

TDK is a better balanced film imo. Apoc Now has amazing writing, acting, and themes BUT it just drags on and takes awhile to really pick up.

Apocalypse Now. I've seen it at least a dozen times including the completely unnecessary Redux release. I never get tired of it. The river journey becoming analogous with the decent into madness intrigued me in my youth. The futility of the expedition and the absence of purely right and wrong were also elements I was into back then. I should say I am a huge fan of Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, so I come into it already loving the source material. Besides, it also had a very young Lawrence Fishburn as a teenage US soldier.

Considering you put this poll on a comic forum, I think there is going to be some bias.

both great but hard to compare. I'll go with TDK

The Dark Knight.

Haven't even seen Apocalypse Now, but out of the horde of great movies I've witnessed, for The Dark Knight to come out on top speaks volumes. I doubt Apocalypse Now is the movie I've been waiting for. The premise don't even sound that great.

Apocalypse Now would stomp Nolan's entire filmography, let alone The Dark Knight.

Apocalypse Now

If it didn't engage you, then it isn't overrated, it's just not for you. For you, it wasn't very entertaining, and that's perfectly fine. But that doesn't mean it won't appeal to other people

I do think that Apocalypse Now is a deeper and more profound movie with it essentially being a story of madness and the horrors equated to it, in the setting of war. There's also the sharp and brutal commentary of the hypocrisy of America that Coppola has done so much, and he does it here yet again. I think The Dark Knight is amazing, a masterpiece. That being said, it isn't nearly as rewatchable as Apocalypse Now for me, but I understand that's fully subjective. I think both do very similar things. They're both thought provoking films with plenty of social commentary about America and events in it, have amazing cinematography, performances, etc. I do think that TDK falls short in a few categories in comparison to Apocalypse Now, such as cinematography, editing, screenplay, and even loses out on emotional impact.

Both are amazing movies. TDK is in my top 20, but Apocalypse Now is in my top 10. So I gotta go with that

hi

Apocalypse Now easily lol.

TDK stomps. Apocalypse Now was soooo boring.

Well, you're right - but I never tried to deny that. Movies are inarguably subjective and all I can really do is offer my subjective and personal opinion.

Apocalypse Now easily, the better crafted film.

@theamazingspidey:

You claimed it was overrated because it didn’t engage you, which suggests that you believe it wasn’t as good as people said it was because it didn’t engage you, which I find to be a flawed argument

My big problems with TDK are some of the performances being pretty weak. The opening bank heist is full of bad acting and bad line delivery apart from Ledger. And a bunch of the extras (if they even are extras) don't do a very good job. As well as that, the film has a lot of explanations which is why it doesn't really have any plot holes. Unfortunately, quite a few of them don't really make any sense at all. There's also the fact that Harvey's transformation is way too abrupt. He goes from a good man, who gets pushed to the edge but still retains his moral code, to a man suddenly willing to murder innocent children. It's done way too quickly. And Rachel, quite possibly the most important character in the film, is just so underdeveloped. It goes to the point where her death doesn't get any reaction out of the viewer, and her death has literally no meaning to the audience.

It's mostly stuff like that which helps my decision to pick Apocalypse Now

I could try rewatching Apocalypse Now. I understand what it’s praised for conceptually, but it wasn’t exactly what I was getting from my viewing. But I would give it a 9 out of 10.

Switching topic: It being easy to make Harvey become a lunatic is the point of the transformation.

“I really think we should be praising more movies which can find a healthy balance between entertaining and thought provoking:“

I do think this is a great way to explain why The Dark Knight stands out so much as a movie. I honestly had a hard time reading it so I could be wrong, but I do feel like TDK had more depth than Heart of Darkness. The Things They Carried overpower both by quite a bit though (which I read the same school year)

@brogokudestroys: “The opening bank heist is full of bad acting and bad line delivery apart from Ledger”

No idea what you’re talking here. The dialogue is all catchy, effective at communicating plotlines and themes that lay groundwork for the story. The clown thieves having funny voices is great.