Avenger Take 3rd in All-time Grossed Films

That.... made sense.

I bow before our body snatching overlords.

To be honest I don't think there was a TDKR trailer before The Avengers when I first saw it (opening night); in fact I remember saying, "surprised there wasn't the trailer for it" after the movie was over.



When I saw The Avengers this past Sunday; there was a trailer for TDKR though....

Now #33... for now.

I would maybe go with a trashbin rather than a bucket as you'll be vomiting alot.

I'm sorry, I like Joss Whedon and he made a fun Avengers film but I don't and can't ever understand how anyone would think that Whedon is even in the same class as Nolan as either a writer or director. I can understand preferring what Whedon does over what Nolan does--that I get. I don't agree with it, but I get it.

However, any first year film student will tell you that Nolan is a better technical director. That's really not up for debate. It's not a matter of opinion, Nolan is simply more skilled at shooting and editing a film. Period.

And in the realm of writing...that's a matter of personal taste. Maybe you prefer a good old fashioned tale of Good Vs. Evil that's alot of fun to watch. I like that sort of thing myself. But what I like even more is a movie whose outcome I can't predict. A movie that I might have to think about a bit before making up my mind. I like a complex film that my friends and I can watch over and over and discuss years after the movie was made.

And yeah, you can do that with the Avengers in the sense that everyone will sit around and talk about how awesome this scene or that scene was and that's good fun. But I remember after Inception came out and the thread in these very forums. I remember how people debated what they thought happened in the movie and what the ending meant to them, personally. And that's a harder thing to do than to write a fun action film. Not that writing a *good* action film is easy but making a movie that people see again and again and all have different opinions about? That's a rare thing.

So yeah, get out the vomit bucket because until Joss' output becomes a bit more even, I'm not even putting him the same league as Nolan.

You judge difficulty on a very subjective scale.

I'm a big fan of Nolan, and I believe Inception was an extremely well done project from story to scripting to shooting. However, to dismiss what Whedon did with Avengers is to conflate setting with skill. On many technical levels I consider Inception to be a far more intricate movie than Avengers obviously is. But Whedon wasn't tasked with making an intricate Avengers movie. Whedon was tasked with making an approachable and integrated Avengers movie. There's no specific reason to believe that Nolan would have made a better Avengers movie than Whedon did.


As to your statement: "any first year film student will tell you that Nolan is a better technical director" here's what I know. Nolan is known to work closely with a specific cinematographer - Wally Pfister has been Nolan's DP for virtually all his movies, and its well known that he collaborates with and relies heavily on Pfister for the shooting look of his movies (separate from the design work of his movies). What you see on the screen is Nolan's vision, but the technical skill you're seeing is Pfister. Whedon isn't as wedded to a single DP - the work he's done over the years would prohibit that anyway - but he's also known as being a stronger director than cinematographer.

Which is important, because when comparing, say, Inception and Avengers, to say any first year film student will tell you that Nolan is a better technical director" the strengths of these two directors is in overall look of the movie, and actual direction. Both are less in-camera directors and more actor-directors. So the evidence of their strength of their direction comes from their cues and direction for performances.

And if you were not there on-set, I don't see how you can directly compare the two directors on their technical merits in that area: it doesn't leave unambiguous footprints on screen, except to say that both appear to be extremely good at getting strong performances out of their respective actors.

I will say that its obvious to anyone who has studied both that Nolan is the technical film geek and Whedon is the more playful experimenter. But which one is better is something that shouldn't be "obvious" when dealing with two directors of that caliber.

As to writing, I'm curious how much of either director's writing you've actually read.

I'm not - he's shallow, over-rated and has a way smaller following even among geeks than his small cult of fanatical fans are prepared to admit.

But the Avengers had to be light and flashy to work properly - it couldn't be a character driven movie because the collection of characters are too larger than life to work together in a more serious setting.

I can - quite easily
And by the looks of it, so did the vast majorty of the TV watching the movie going public
Firefly flopped, Serenity bombed, Dollhouse was dead on arrival - Whedon needed Marvel to rescue him from his own vanity projects - and once he had better material to work with, and less freedom to indulge his stupidity, he finally produced a good quality piece of work.

This statement suggests you aren't familiar with, or don't understand, Whedon's other work.

He is known for morally complex characters, not simple good vs evil.

He is also known for playing with audience expectations, not predictability.

(This is Whedon's mistake - he treats his audience like intelligent people, when clearly, most of them aren't)


You are falling into a common trap, of confusing seriousness for quality.

That's the default Brown Shirt defense - that the only reason Whedon isn't popular is because people are too stupid to understand his "genius" - when it's really a case of most people being able to see through him - assuming they've even heard of him in the first place.

Whedon had extremely wide latitude on Avengers, and while there are two screenwriters credited with the script - Whedon and Zak Penn - Whedon has stated publicly that he threw out the original script and rewrote it as an entirely new story, and Penn publicly confirms those statements.

In fact Whedon was hired to direct after selling the producers on an entire new treatment of the movie in the first place. I don't see where his "freedom to indulge his stupidity" was curtailed at any point.

You say that like it made the Avenger's scriptwriter's job easier.

It's fairly easy to gauge people's general intelligence levels by what they post on the forums. And there are some here who couldn't see through an open window...

Technically, is the window the hole in the wall or the glass in the hole in the wall? If the glass is the window when the window is closed, does it cease to be the window when the window is opened? If the window is the hole in the wall, is the hole defined by its perimeter or its extent? Do we see *through* windows, or *with* windows? We don't usually see *through* glasses, but *with* glasses.

Are glasses technically windows within glasses frames? In which direction does the window point when flipups are flipped up?

Is that an European or African Swallow?


Oh, and Joss Whedon isn't a great writer. He is merely a decent one in the sea of mediocrity that is the American TV and film industry. Monty Python? That's real talent!

I'm pretty familar with Whedon's work and I enjoy it. I actually kind of came in through the back door in regards to his material though as I started by reading the comics he had written and went from there. I don't think he's terrible--I don't want anyone to think that. I just think Nolan is so much better at filmmaking in every arena.

Its perfectly fine to have that option. But stating that everyone who knows anything about film should obviously agree is not stating an opinion: its delivering a challenge. And its a challenge while standing on extremely shaky ground. I think you like Nolan's films better than you like Whedon's work. That's fine: I know lots of people who have that opinion. I'd probably give the edge to Nolan myself. But don't drag technical elements into your opinion that aren't necessary and you can't support, unless you actually want to have a discussion about the technical aspects of film making.

^^This.

I like the writing of Pratchett and and strongly dislike the writing of Dickens, but I'm not going to go round stating that one is clearly a much better writer than the other and anyone who disagrees with me is ignorant.

On the whole, I prefer Whedon's work, because I prefer a touch of humour to leaven the bleakness of existence.

#28.

Take *that*, Dark Knight.


Also, maybe #24 of all time adjusted.

Looking at that list, it wouldn't take much for the Avengers to break through the 20s.

My grandma saw Gone with the Wind a dozen times as a kid but she says several times she ended up seeing Gone only because her family wanted to see a news reel and the theater was the only place in 50+ miles that had air conditioning.

Oh we're going to need the special level of hell for this one.

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