Joker Review Thread

[D Piddy 1982]

Saw it last night and wanted to come straight to the TD forum and scan through this thread (well I didn't know this exact thread existed, but guessed there might have been a Joker thread in the movie section).

Have scanned through to see if anyone has mentioned what I came here to say, but can't see it unless it's in a spoiler section. And I don't believe what I'm going to say is a spoiler, but definitely worth sharing for Turtles fans...

In the first quarter of the film there was an actor who looked and sounded familiar but I just couldn't place him, plus the film was moving through it's paces so I didn't have much time to dwell on it.

By the end of the film I had forgotten about it, but as I sat there watching the credits one name suddenly jumped out at me: JOSH PAIS! Anyone else notice him or his name?

"I don't think it's loaded kid"

[CyberCubed]

Hopefully I can see this movie this weekend. I haven’t paid for a movie ticket since like 2012 or so, I can’t even remember the last time I sat in a theater.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Leo656

-----------------------

Also, a few Notes (I know people here generally hate Facts, but I worship 'em, so deal with it):

- The comics actually HAVE been consistent with regards to Thomas's character for most of the last 80 years; the changes that imply he's a jagoff are like, 5 minutes old by comparison.


Again, just FYI. Point being, I'm not the only person who cares about this kinda thing, turns out it's actually most people. Neat!

Hey man, you're not quoting me, but several of your posts directly reply to points I went balls deep on in my reply to you, so it's easy to feel like I'm being addressed. You chose to evade those points I made, and debate can be exhausting, so I understood.

Then you laid out a "let's agree to disagree" on the Thomas Wayne thing, but apparently changed your mind - That's a good thing, in my eyes. Discussion is what the forum is for!

But these are your weakest arguments yet. One is just a reiteration of your belief with no new substance. You're just saying "Yeah the comics actually HAVE been consistent" aka "I AM right". Based on what new evidence? Otherwise, where is this going?

Anyways, if you are going to kill the convo, then bring it back to life with no new points, but just a reaffirmation of your belief that you are correct, then you should just acknowledge the original counter-post, right? Where else can the discussion go?

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I guess when I really think about it, I never regarded Bruce's parents as overly virtuous... until the Nolan movies and the speech from Thomas on the train. It was a thing kind of exclusive to those movies, wasn't it? Up until then I never really thought of them as bad, but then I never really thought much about them at all... their place in Bruce's history was just to take him for that walk and get shot and die. Not good or bad, just basically administers of a decent childhood for Bruce before playing chicken with bullets.

Yup. The Nolan movies emphasized it a bit, and some of the comic writers choose to play into it, but many people don't recognize Thomas Wayne's moral center as the driving factor in Bruce doing what he does. I never did. And that's valid.

This isn't an Uncle Ben - Peter Parker dynamic. In that story, the theme of living by the morals of your parents is much more concrete and acknowledged.

Bruce lives in the shadow of his parents death, of course. He misses and loves them.

He doesn't dress up as a Bat and save people because "W.W.T.D?" (What Would Thomas Do?)

Sometimes people latch onto certain aspects of a character and have a hard time letting their interpretation go. At the end of the day, Batman is one of the most malleable characters in fiction, and there is more than one right interpretation. We've all witnessed that.

[Leo656]

Yawn.

Again, you don't think it matters, I do. It is what it is.

And it was clearly in response to S.B.'s nonsense, but I don't want to give them credit for anything, ever, which is why I didn't quote them. I feel bad for taking their bait in the first place, so consider this an "apology" I guess.

You seem to have a real problem with the fact that there's one small thing about this movie I didn't care for. Deal with it. We don't need to keep going on about this.

I apologize for letting S.B. drag me back into a "debate" I was already done with. I'll try not to let it happen again.

And you're wrong; it's not a "conversation", it's a circle-jerk, and I've been bored with it for three days. Don't take this too harshly, but I really don't care about this anymore. You feel the way you feel, I disagree, nobody is going to budge, so let's move on instead of regurgitating the same sh*t back and forth. Pretty sure anyone reading this thread would prefer to talk about the actual movie and doesn't really care about this particular difference of opinion between you and I.

Again, it's all been said, and I was not specifically replying to you. We don't agree, we never will, so the wise thing to do is move on. Call that an "admission of defeat" if it gets you hard. Whatever lets people go back to talking about the movie, and not whether or not I have some kind of mental problem because I didn't like one small thing in it.

[AquaParade]

Quick thought: they never pick up the thread regarding Arthur being in a mental hospital before the events of the film. We don't know why he was locked up or any of the circumstances surrounding it.

This is a marijuana and beer induced theory so butcher it appropriately, but...could it be that the final scene in the movie takes place before the events of the film, along with the flashback we see?

Does Arthur's look in the flashback resemble the way he looks at the end of the film?

This is a half-asssed theory if I ever had one, because I don't even know why they would do that, but what do you think? All I need to know is that Arthur looks somewhat younger in the flashback to debunk my theory. Take me out back and put me down.

Edit: *commits Seppuku*
If this were true, it would imply that Arthur imagined the whole dang thing, which is boring. Also, why would he be running free after having killed the nurse? Unless imagined that as well. Also lame.

I'll leave this post here as a monument of shame and an example to others. Winners don't use drugs.

[Leo656]

I caught it, too. It definitely raises a few questions about the sequence of events, what actually happened and what didn't.

There's a theory floating around, for example, which speculates that the entire movie was entirely in his imagination. People point out that specific scene - and its lack of explanation or extrapolation - as "proof". Supposedly nothing in the movie actually happened, and the entire time Arthur is just screwing with the Asylum nurse before he kills her.

It's a way to go, I guess, but I don't like that theory. I would prefer to be able to take SOME of what I watched at face value, even though some of it being purposely vague is just fine. The entire film being a fake-out is pretty bad writing, I think, or at least not very satisfying.

We'll probably never know.
----------------

Don't be so hard on yourself, son. In my experience people who don't "herbalize" tend to be jagoffs. Reefer should come free in the mail to every household, like those little samples of Tide laundry detergent. It's basically essential for anyone who wants to walk around NOT an asshole.

But yeah, you're fine.

[CyberCubed]

My theater erupted with laughter during the scene when the midget tried to leave Artur's apartment but the chain lock was too high on the door for him to reach. Seriously, people laughed like it was a comedy. I thought it was amusing but the way people found it so funny kinda rubbed me the wrong way, especially with the guy trying to escape with his life.

[Leo656]

That was the funniest part of the whole f*cking movie. Everyone was cracking up where we were, too. Sure, it was "We really shouldn't be laughing" laughter, but again, it was the closest to "funny" the movie ever got, and I think it was deliberately played to get exactly that response.

Especially the fake "jump scare". Poor little guy probably pissed himself.

Aside: I've occasionally worked with a midget wrestler (Short-Sleeve Sampson) who insists on calling himself a midget, and his catchphrase is "It's Midget Time!", so that's what I roll with because he's by far the one I've spent the most time around. And he could probably beat me up.

Legit, he told me quite decisively, "I ain't a Little Person, I'm a f*ckin' midget!" and then he cut the dopest freestyle rap. I ain't gonna argue with him.

[Voltron]

The Joker is at his best when he makes us laugh at his evil. How many times have I caught myself laughing at things I'm not supposed to.

"Excuse me, operator? I think my line has been. . . disconnected!"

[ZariusTwo]

So SNL may have completely stolen Joker's thunder with their Grouch parody lately

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

So SNL may have completely stolen Joker's thunder with their Grouch parody lately

I came to this thread to post this video. SNL sucks these days, but this sketch is great. Love it!

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

My theater erupted with laughter during the scene when the midget tried to leave Artur's apartment but the chain lock was too high on the door for him to reach. Seriously, people laughed like it was a comedy. I thought it was amusing but the way people found it so funny kinda rubbed me the wrong way, especially with the guy trying to escape with his life.

I can somewhat relate to this.

To be frank, I actually don't think it's a funny joke, whether it's offensive or not. "oh...he is too short to reach the door. Ha..ha?". Of course, comedy is subjective, so who am I to say definitively what is funny and what is not?

The thing is, I think one thing that propels it to being funny to a lot of people is a sense of false superiority when they see it. That's why the laughter makes me a bit uncomfortable. I just don't think a person being too short to reach a door is really enough to make a theater roar into laughter, all on it's own. But it happened in mine too.

I also think the other reason people laugh at jokes in this movie, that others might not find funny, is for a release of tension. Often, when people are going through a dark ride, they will anxiously reach for a reason to laugh or release some anxiety.

But, hey, that's just my opinion, obviously. I wouldn't push that narrative on anyone who laughed at the joke - comedy is, again, subjective - but that's my read from the situation.

[CyberCubed]

Yeah. My other favorite scene in the movie is the tail-end when the gang smash into the police car and let Joker out. And Joker uses the blood on his face to make his "red lips" for the first time by smearing it all the way to the end. That was amazing and I didn't think they would do it, that signified his complete transformation into Joker to me. And it also makes sense how Joker can get a gang to work for him if they believe in him and want to "rise up" against society.

Given Bruce is 8-10 in this, I can see Arthur turning into a master criminal within the next 10 years. It would make sense, we see his beginnings and he needs time to become a master criminal thief. And it would give enough time for this Bruce to age to Batman. I know people don't like Joker being that much older than Batman, but I feel it works here.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yeah. My other favorite scene in the movie is the tail-end when the gang smash into the police car and let Joker out. And Joker uses the blood on his face to make his "red lips" for the first time by smearing it all the way to the end. That was amazing and I didn't think they would do it, that signified his complete transformation into Joker to me. And it also makes sense how Joker can get a gang to work for him if they believe in him and want to "rise up" against society.

Given Bruce is 8-10 in this, I can see Arthur turning into a master criminal within the next 10 years. It would make sense, we see his beginnings and he needs time to become a master criminal thief. And it would give enough time for this Bruce to age to Batman. I know people don't like Joker being that much older than Batman, but I feel it works here.

Fun fact: in the script, Joker picks up a shard of glass and cuts the smile into his face.

Personally, I like what they went with.

As for the age difference, it's one of my least favorite talking points on this movie. It's just a "who cares??" to me. But I think your justification works.

[CyberCubed]

While this movie did not inspire me to a life of violence or to a life of crime, I do feel like I want to “rise up” so to speak. You couldn’t help but cheer for Joker at the end in a dark way. We do live in a society.

If this Joker never appears again I headcanon it to be Heath Ledger’s Joker’s origin story. Isn’t it funny how the backstory of Joker falling into acid and getting his skin bleached is now dropped just for face paint these days? I guess they feel the acid backstory for Joker doesn’t make sense anymore outside comic book settings.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

While this movie did not inspire me to a life of violence or to a life of crime, I do feel like I want to “rise up” so to speak. You couldn’t help but cheer for Joker at the end in a dark way.

Not really.

We do live in a society.

Most people do.

If this Joker never appears again I headcanon it to be Heath Ledger’s Joker’s origin story.

It would almost line up, but then there's the matter of Bruce's parents' death being completely different than what we saw in Begins.

Isn’t it funny how the backstory of Joker falling into acid and getting his skin bleached is now dropped just for face paint these days? I guess they feel the acid backstory for Joker doesn’t make sense anymore outside comic book settings.

Well, it's not like him falling in acid has ever been 100% canon to anything. Though "Suicide Squad" kind of suggested it was a thing again.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

While this movie did not inspire me to a life of violence or to a life of crime, I do feel like I want to “rise up” so to speak. You couldn’t help but cheer for Joker at the end in a dark way. We do live in a society.

If this Joker never appears again I headcanon it to be Heath Ledger’s Joker’s origin story. Isn’t it funny how the backstory of Joker falling into acid and getting his skin bleached is now dropped just for face paint these days? I guess they feel the acid backstory for Joker doesn’t make sense anymore outside comic book settings.

I think that origin only strengthens the story if you want to emphasize the fact that his new look helped push him over the edge. I don’t find it all that interesting or necessary, personally. No issue with it, just not essential, in my eyes. And most audiences eyes, clearly.

I’ve seen a lot of people express your sentiment of wanting to pretend Heath Ledger’s Joker is Joaquin’s. Never understood this, but don’t let me rain on your parade. I have my own head-canon in different ways too, so I think I get it.

At the same time, with this one, I think “why?”. I mean, the characters aren’t even alike. I guess my mental gymnastics are often used to “clean things up” when canon or retcons become too messy, if that makes sense. Mostly with comics.

But it’s harder for me to imagine watching The Dark Knight, and thinking “oh yeah! That’s totally the Joker from the other movie. Hehe.” and having it affect my enjoyment in any way.

But hey, I’m trying. Perhaps it gives you a feeling of watching a grandiose narrative. Maybe it’s fun to put both movies on your shelf and feel like you have a long running story,
Interpreted by different artists. Idk.

[Andrew NDB]

Most credible theories find a lot of credible evidence that the Ledger Joker is like a Special Ops guy that went over to Afghanistan/Iraq and came back with some major trauma. There's several clues in the movie to this end.

That doesn't really seem compatible with the Phoenix Joker.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Well, it's not like him falling in acid has ever been 100% canon to anything.

Completely false.

From Detective Comics #168 (dated February 1951), "The Man Behind The Red Hood", through "The Killing Joke" (published in 1988 ), there was absolutely, positively, 100% NO confusion or discrepancy surrounding the Joker's origin. He had ONE origin, oft-repeated and referenced many times. And any confusion which has come up afterwards is simply people reading too much into one throwaway line of dialog in "Killing Joke". Even Killing Joke doesn't erase, replace, or supersede the older version in any significant way, it merely expands on it and changes a few key details. Point of fact, just a few years before Killing Joke, they'd already re-reinforced Joker's Red Hood origins in the three-issue "Untold Legend of the Batman" mini-series.

Short version: A guy called The Red Hood was part of a botched robbery and jumped into a vat of chemicals when confronted by Batman, which turned him into The Joker. The rest of the details have varied a tiny bit but for about 40 years it was not open to debate. In fact, it was SUCH hard canon that it was one of those "Literally Everyone Knows That" bits of trivia, both in real life and the DCU itself. Other characters made reference to it. Joker himself would make reference to it, even when he was completely alone and talking to nobody but himself - which to me throws a lot of shade at the "He likes to make up stories to screw with people" explanation. As recently as the mid-90s, Joker would have "flashbacks" to being Red Hood and the events that transpired.

Killing Joke was not written to erase or replace the established story, just add texture to it. The changes are relatively minor - instead of being a "master criminal", for example, "Red Hood" was revealed to be a patsy for the gang itself, a fall guy, but there was no question still that the events depicted were "hard canon".

Where people get confused is because of ONE line in the story, where Joker says that he has trouble remembering his own past, and "prefers it to be Multiple Choice!" But again, this is where people read too much into it. This line only exists for the reason of, in most tellings Red Hood was a criminal mastermind, but in TKJ he's just a sucker who gets in over his head, while everything else remains the same. There's STILL not supposed to be any question as to whether the events at Axis Chemicals took place - they absolutely did - it was simply to smooth over a continuity wrinkle that was left over from "Untold Legend", which had only recently been published and was still selling plenty of copies. And it makes sense in-context: whenever Joker "flashes back" to see himself as Red Hood, he generally "remembers" the Master Criminal, not the poor sucker whose wife died right before the big heist. THOSE details are "fuzzy canon", not the larger details.

The fact is, the character still reacts emotionally whenever he sees the Red Hood mask, or is confronted by someone else calling themselves "Red Hood"; that only makes any sense at all if that stuff actually happened. And we have no real reason at all to dispute that it did. They did a terrible "alternate origin" in Batman: Confidential about 13 years ago, to try and line it up more with the Heath Ledger version, but it was awful, and most people ignore it, so we still don't have any real alternative origin. We have the Red Hood story, and a few small details which may have happened one way or another, but ultimately, THAT is the origin of the character, at least in the comic books.

To say it was never canon is blatantly, provably false. It's such hard canon that other DCU characters treat the event as if it's common knowledge and Joker himself has never even tried to dispute it. Even "regular people" in the DCU who've tried to research the Joker's past can ONLY conclusively prove one thing: That he was Red Hood before he fell in the acid, which means that in-universe it must not be a very well-kept secret. The only "unknowns" are who the Joker was beforehand - his real name, etc. - and whether or not Red Hood was truly a criminal genius or simply a putz who had One Bad Day. And that's fine, those details can remain fuzzy without actually changing the larger story at all, and it's good to leave a bit of mystery and all that.

The movies, obviously, are an entirely different thing. I'm merely responding to Andrew's claim that the Red Hood/Axis Chemicals origin was "never 100% canon", which is false. Despite the fact that some writers more recently think they can come up with a better one, or at least one that ties into the films better (which is really the only reason anyone has even tried to change it), the fact is that it's the ONLY "canon" origin the character has ever had, and was never disputed or even questioned for almost 50 years. That should count for something.

Now, if some people say they prefer it when the character has no origin because it makes him "scarier" or whatever, that's their prerogative. Everyone has their own "headcanon", as has been discussed. But the fact is, he does have an established origin in the comic books and it's still never been discredited. The fact that Jason Todd ironically calls himself "The Red Hood", for example, makes no sense at all if you get rid of or ignore that version of the story. It's all right there in the material; whether people want to accept it or not is their own hangup. But to say it never happened or was never canon is completely wrong.

[Xav]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Isn’t it funny how the backstory of Joker falling into acid and getting his skin bleached is now dropped just for face paint these days? I guess they feel the acid backstory for Joker doesn’t make sense anymore outside comic book settings.

Not really. Both Gotham and Suicide Squad had him fall in acid, I think the only other time he didn't was in The Dark Knight.