Joker (2019)

[Peelee]

All of them.

Any movie worthy of both Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay would be impressive indeed, I've gotta say.

[Bartmanhomer]

Any movie worthy of both Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay would be impressive indeed, I've gotta say.

Any don't forget Best Leading Actor, Best Director and Best Pictures.

[Peelee]

Any don't forget Best Leading Actor, Best Director and Best Pictures.

I'm saying those two awards are mutually exclusive. No movie can ever win both of those, because it's impossible.

[Magic_Hat]

Any movie worthy of both Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay would be impressive indeed, I've gotta say.

I hope you're happy. Every robot brain that read this just exploded from your paradox!

[Peelee]

I hope you're happy. Every robot brain that read this just exploded from your paradox!

Good, that's fewer spambots I need to clean up.

[flat_footed]

I hope you're happy. Every robot brain that read this just exploded from your paradox!

Good, that's fewer spambots I need to clean up.

Wheatley would disagree, and would arguably be dramatically more annoying while spamming.

[Traab]

wheatley would disagree, and would arguably be dramatically more annoying while spamming.

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Ugh sorry, had an inexplicable flashback of some sort.

[PontificatusRex]

I think if you remove the whole fandom/superhero world out of it, then a movie exploring the idea of "What would drive a person to become a mass-murderer" is a pretty relevant one in our present world. Instead of trying to really tie it to the rest of the DC movies, it seems like they're just using the Joker as a hook to lure more people in than a similar movie about a previously unknown character would.

I've already seen an article or two that speculated on the potential danger of this film - given that we've seen a number a violent acts perpetrated by "angry, mentally unstable loner" types, there's a fear that making the Joker sympathetic could further justify the actions of such types in their own minds. (And please, no "It's just a movie!" comments. Art and media influence both culture and individuals, two of the most prominent negative examples being the film The Birth of the Nation resurrecting the KKK after it had been dormant for decades, and the man who tried to kill Ronald Reagan being directly inspired by the film Taxi Driver.) But I think it's a topic worth exploring. How does a person who doesn't start out inherently malicious and hateful get to a place where they decide they want to start killing people? I think The Killing Joke was a great story on this theme, but it seems like this new film emphasizes the cumulative smaller cruelties of the world instead of the couple of major blows that make of the One Bad Day of The Killing Joke.

[Noldo]

I think if you remove the whole fandom/superhero world out of it, then a movie exploring the idea of "What would drive a person to become a mass-murderer" is a pretty relevant one in our present world. Instead of trying to really tie it to the rest of the DC movies, it seems like they're just using the Joker as a hook to more people in than a similar movie about a previously unknown character would.

I think that this does not alleviate the problem with using Joker, namely that Joker’s madness is not supposed to make any sense. There should not be any coherent path that leads to a birth of Joker since his madness exists outside the structure. Dark Knight’s Joker with ever changing explanation to his mask achieved that by emphasizing that even his history is just another act given the form that is needed for the maximum chaos at that time.

At the same time I am a bit intrigued by the film, because they clearly have managed to create something that have impressed at least critics. However, portrayals of faulty persons have always been darlings of critics (didn’t John Wayne say that if he would have known that he has to wear an eyepatch to get an Oscar he would have done it sooner). So tormented character who turn into Joker may be very compelling story, but it can still fail to be Joner.

[Durkoala]

I'm saying those two awards are mutually exclusive. No movie can ever win both of those, because it's impossible.

If there's one that can, it's The Iron Giant, which shifts the setting of the original book from mid-twentieth century rural England to cold-war small-town America, changes the title character to an alien war machine*, changes the final great antagonist to be humanity itself embodied in a secret service agent rather than a continent-sized dragon from outer space**, and drastically changes the Giant's personality. But it does this all in such a way that's consistent with the themes of the book to produce an incredibly well-loved film that captures most*** of the good points of the original story.

/taking the joke seriously.


*It's unclear what The Iron Man (his original title) is in the book: the closest we get is vague second-hand hints that he may be some kind of nature spirit.

**yes, really.

***namely, they left out the giant space dragon and its duel with the Iron Man, and also removes the possiblity of the sequel, which was incredible, so much so I had to mention it here.

[PontificatusRex]

I think that this does not alleviate the problem with using Joker, namely that Joker’s madness is not supposed to make any sense. There should not be any coherent path that leads to a birth of Joker since his madness exists outside the structure.

I dunno, The Killing Joke was all about explaining the Joker's insanity and worldview, wasn't it?

At this point I think the Joker, like Batman, Superman, etc are just too big to be limited by what they're "supposed" to be. The Joker started off as a creepy gangster and evolved into existential terrorist, I don't think either of those is necessarily the "right" portrayal (which is why I'm one of like three people in the world who like Jared Leto's Joker).

[Traab]

I dunno, The Killing Joke was all about explaining the Joker's insanity and worldview, wasn't it?

At this point I think the Joker, like Batman, Superman, etc are just too big to be limited by what they're "supposed" to be. The Joker started off as a creepy gangster and evolved into existential terrorist, I don't think either of those is necessarily the "right" portrayal (which is why I'm one of like three people in the world who like Jared Leto's Joker).

But the thing about the killing joke is, its contradicted by a half dozen other joker stories into his past, which is the point. DC writers have taken what should be a massive continuity log jam and turned it into an intriguing bit of character development for the joker. His past is so mysterious and contradictory, we dont know which, if indeed any, stories are real. Also, I enjoyed letos joker. It wasnt a masterpiece or anything, but it wasnt that bad. Basically how I reacted to the entire movie really.

[Narkis]

I dunno, The Killing Joke was all about explaining the Joker's insanity and worldview, wasn't it?

The Killing Joke has the Joker himself say "If I'm gonna have a past, I prefer it be multiple choice." and his worldview of "everyone is One Bad Day from becoming another Joker" is very much proven wrong when Commissioner Gordon DOESN'T crack after such a Bad Day. I've seen this misconception a lot, and I can only assume it's from people getting their info third-hand from other people who haven't read the story.

I've already seen an article or two that speculated on the potential danger of this film - given that we've seen a number a violent acts perpetrated by "angry, mentally unstable loner" types, there's a fear that making the Joker sympathetic could further justify the actions of such types in their own minds. (And please, no "It's just a movie!" comments. Art and media influence both culture and individuals, two of the most prominent negative examples being the film The Birth of the Nation resurrecting the KKK after it had been dormant for decades, and the man who tried to kill Ronald Reagan being directly inspired by the film Taxi Driver.)

Oh man, it's the "games cause violence" panic all over again. I thought we were past that.

As for the movie itself, I had zero interest in it when it was first announced, the trailers weren't as bad as I expected but they didn't convince me either, and all the brouhaha surrounding it now has made me want to see it. If it's all a stealth marketing campaign, it worked in my case.

[Morgana]

Yeah, although the Killing Joke has what in my opinion is a pretty bad ending, as it kinda does an 180 in it's poin that the Joker is wrong by showing that Batman was in fact one bad day away from becoming like him, which doesn't really make sense as Batman has had far worse days than that one by that point. I mean, you could interpret that what is trying to say is that Batman was always like that, but I just really dislike this whole idea of Batman being one bad day away or even worse, being just like the Joker, cause it's one that is deeply flawed in more than one leveled.

Hell, I'm pretty sure that even the writer of the thing said it's not one of his best work, pity that this comic seemed to lay the blueprints to everything that came after, leading to every Joker story becoming basically Killing Joke redux.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah, although the Killing Joke has what in my opinion is a pretty bad ending, as it kinda does an 180 in it's poin that the Joker is wrong by showing that Batman was in fact one bad day away from becoming like him

I'm assuming you are speaking about the "Batman strangles the Joker to death as they are both laughing" interpretation of the ending.

That's just an interpretation, I prefer to interpret that last panel as being a call-back to the first panel symbolising how Batman and the Joker are stuck in their situation since both refuse to let the other "help" them and both refuse to kill one another which is the meaning of the joke the Joker told and that they were laughing about.

[Rodin]

I've had something happen this week that's changed how I look at the film. I was at the movies with my father to watch It Chapter Two, and the trailer for this movie came up. I commented that this was on my list to keep an eye on, and he said "Let me know, I'll go too".

I was deeply surprised by this. My dad is not a Comics books fan. He hasn't watched any of the MCU, nor any of the DC movies including the original Batman movies from back in the day. I asked him about this after the movie...and he was surprised that it's a comic book movie. He didn't know who the Joker was outside of a very broad "he's that Batman villain", and hadn't recognized from either the trailer or the title that this movie was related to Batman/DC at all.

And yet, it still got him interested enough to want to go to the movies, and he goes to the actual cinema even less often than I do. He just saw a movie about a guy going nuts as he's broken down by society, and decided it looked interesting.

It made me feel a bit small for dismissing the movie on the basis of "#NotMyJoker". So what if it doesn't match the lore? So what if it contradicts the comics, or other interpretations of the Joker? If you show somebody who has never heard of Batman the movie and they say it's good, does that make it a bad movie? Does it make their opinion irrelevant?

I'll wait for reviews, to be sure. But I don't think I can judge the movie ahead of time based on "that's not how my preconceived notion of how the character in another universe would act".

[Dienekes]

I dunno, The Killing Joke was all about explaining the Joker's insanity and worldview, wasn't it?

At this point I think the Joker, like Batman, Superman, etc are just too big to be limited by what they're "supposed" to be. The Joker started off as a creepy gangster and evolved into existential terrorist, I don't think either of those is necessarily the "right" portrayal (which is why I'm one of like three people in the world who like Jared Leto's Joker).

No dude. The Killing Joke is a rejection of the premise that the Joker can have a logical backstory. It’s literally the story that gave us the line “If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.”

And more importantly the Joker fails to turn anyone. He puts Gordon and Barbara through their one bad day and they don’t break.

Now that said, I do agree with your premise. This isn’t my Joker, it’s not intended to be my Joker. And that’s ok. And unlike the last horrible attempt to make a unique take on the character, this one at least seems interesting.

[Morgana]

I'm not even talking about that particular interpetation, even if you don't think that Batman actually killed the Joker, the comic still clearly tries to push the idea that they are pretty much one and the same(I mean, the final joke is about 2 madmen after all). And the trail of light that disappears in the final panel to me is a metaphor for Batman falling into insanity, as this is just way too much of a specific visual element to be anything other than a clear callback to the joke that the Joker told on that same page.

Now honestly I would have a problem with the movie even if this wasn't about the Joker, as this honestly doesn't really does anything that hasn't done before quite frankly. Except that normally speaking in other stories where the main character is a man down on his luck that is disgruntled with society and uses this as a justification for commiting acts of violence, the idea is not played this...straight if that makes sense? Like in Fight Club for example, despite all the people that think the main character is a victim, or even worse actually justified, the movie has a clear message condeming his toxic mindset and it actually shows the character breaking away from it. Joker just seems to be trying to justify the main character's actions a bit too much for my taste?

[Narkis]

Joker just seems to be trying to justify the main character's actions a bit too much for my taste?

Joker is THE example of a murderous psychopath, and we haven't even seen the movie yet. How can you tell he is portrayed as remotely justified?

[Morgana]

Oh, cause the script leaked and I read the thing lol thhat being said, I think you can get that idea pretty clearly for what the trailer focus on and how it frames most of the character's interactions

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, the Joker is one of those characters who work better the less you know for sure what happened in their past.

like one of his lines from the Killing Joke is how embracing madness is about forgetting your past because all logic is dependent on cause and effect, which means acknowledging linear time and therefore that A leads to B, therefore things make sense because they happen in a certain order. Rejecting memory like that means rejecting logic to him.

the backstory shown to us in that comic is pretty linear and one thing to leading to another. and isn't really the Joker telling anyone this story, its just shown to reader. its ambiguous whether the Joker is reminiscing or whether its just the author showing it alongside the current day story. if its the author showing it, its objective reality and the Joker just seems kind of pathetic because of it. if its not objective, because the Joker is insane and therefore making up these memories to suit his philosophy, then he is making up something to justify his philosophy to himself, and whether he is making memories that are LESS bad because the actual bad day was much more horrible than the one shown that he doesn't WANT to remember it, or its MORE bad than what really happened so as to make sure he keeps on convincing himself to keep on doing what he is doing.

because lets be honest, how Pre-Joker fell for the Red Hood lie was very implausible. I'm pretty sure anyone with two ears and a brain would've seen right through the crooks white lie that red hood was an "important position" and that its clear he is being used as a distraction so that Batman will focus on him and take him to prison while the other crooks run away with the money and get some other person to be their sacrificial mark.

and yes, Gordon doesn't go insane from a bad day, he is just....kind of shook but will probably be needing some treatment for what happened to him regardless.

So it makes a lot of sense people aren't real excited about him getting a backstory movie. because backstories exist to make sense of and flesh out a character, and thus develop sympathy for them. The Joker while darkly humorous is not just any villain, but a big time villain, one who makes horrific stuff happen, plays for keeps and could theoretically do anything and fulfill any villainous role you could ever want in a story simply because he is flexible enough in his motivation that he could be your lovable wacky yet dangerous villain in the animated series or a completely monstrous person capable of committing some seriously screwed up things in the comics. he is the kind of character that honestly is beyond the confines of the setting he is written in: you could theoretically drop him in any story or universe with minimal modification and have him make sense as antagonist, give his dark philosophy speech to any hero while causing chaos, he simply has this archetypical quality to him that makes him work.

so putting a backstory on that is kind of limiting him really. because one of his best qualities if what he could possibly or potentially be rather than what he actually was. what he could do, is more important than what he did.

[Morgana]

And honestly if you wanted your movie to not have to deal with the baggage that comes with the character, you could just...make an original movie? It's just that even the director of the thing has gone on record that he is not really taking in consideration any previous portrayal of the character, which is just weird considering this is you know...an adaptation. It's not even a matter of "not muh Joker" considering I'm not even that big of a fan of the character, I just think that at one point you should just give up and call the movie "Clown man does a murder" or something to that effect, cause the whole point of making a work based on something is that you'll you know...base it on something

[Dragonus45]

I dunno, The Killing Joke was all about explaining the Joker's insanity and worldview, wasn't it?

At this point I think the Joker, like Batman, Superman, etc are just too big to be limited by what they're "supposed" to be. The Joker started off as a creepy gangster and evolved into existential terrorist, I don't think either of those is necessarily the "right" portrayal (which is why I'm one of like three people in the world who like Jared Leto's Joker).

The killing joke was about the absurdity of taking this super hero stuff to seriously and taking the piss a bit more then anything else. Just look at the fight scene near the end where he pulls Batmans cowl down and smacks him around with some kitchen equipment and tell me this story isn't meant to be funny. The one version of jokers backstory there was also just really interesting on its own right and lead to people losing track of what was actually going on... and his entire philosophy was wrong because neither that one bad day nor any of the other horrific thing the clown ever did to the Gordon family ever actually got the commissioner to crack.

[Lord Raziere]

And honestly if you wanted your movie to not have to deal with the baggage that comes with the character, you could just...make an original movie? It's just that even the director of the thing has gone on record that he is not really taking in consideration any previous portrayal of the character, which is just weird considering this is you know...an adaptation. It's not even a matter of "not muh Joker" considering I'm not even that big of a fan of the character, I just think that at one point you should just give up and call the movie "Clown man does a murder" or something to that effect, cause the whole point of making a work based on something is that you'll you know...base it on something

Because we're in eternal franchise piggyback remake hell. hollywood goes for things that ALREADY sell well and thus things that are ALREADY known. thus they don't make anything original now, because the entire strategy they do is let other media come up with something original and then when it gets popular enough through other means they go "hey people already like this, lets give it to them on a big screen!" thats why Harry Potter got movies because its a book that got big, so its essentially them playing a game of "so whose work out there has gotten safe enough to piggyback a profit off their work in obscurity?" because movies are always expensive, so they don't make a big budget movie unless they are reasonably sure it will do well.

other media of course, have made long-running franchises that just keep making consistent stuff to sustain a consistent fanbase across generations. for example, I doubt any of the original fans of golden age Superman are even alive anymore. so of course whats movies are going to be made? things that have consistently had a following for decades, sure the superhero movies might someday get to the point of burnout which some say has happened or will happen soon, but that just means we will transitioning to another trend of movies remaking or adapting other stuff for a while until superheroes come up with new stuff to get a following that will eventually resurface, this kind of thing is cyclical.

quite simply, hollywood is a popularity prestige badge: if you have gotten a movie made of it, that means it got popular enough for hollywood to care enough to make one. they don't need to make anything original for them to make money, originality's a job for books and internet webcomics, because those don't require a bunch of people agreeing to a big project and having to be reassured that yes they will make a profit off of this big art project they are doing.

[Morgana]

Ok, let me rephrase that, I KNOW why they did it, I just think it's a very cynical and artistically bankrupt reasoning

[Lord Raziere]

Ok, let me rephrase that, I KNOW why they did it, I just think it's a very cynical and artistically bankrupt reasoning

That it is.

but maybe, think less upon things that you can't clearly change yourself, and focus on the things that you can change, like what sources you can look to find originality. and perhaps in not caring you can at least make yourself happy by not paying attention to it. and maybe if enough people stop caring about hollywood, the people who care about money will go find something else to make a profit off of, leaving only the people who cares about making movies for the sake of it to make whatever movie they want regardless of whatever big franchises want to do!

[Magic_Hat]

Wheatley would disagree, and would arguably be dramatically more annoying while spamming.

Who that? I don't get it.

[Fyraltari]

Who that? I don't get it.

Wheatley is a robot from the video game Portal 2 who can resist having is processor fried by the paradox ‘This sentence is a lie’ because he is too dumb to realize the paradox and simply says ‘True!’

Even his misbegotten ‘creations’ the frankenturrets are smarter than he is.

[Peelee]

Wheatley is also just the best.

[Fyraltari]

Wheatley is the borst.