Joker Review Thread

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Xav

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.

Well, "Joker" as well, now.

And it may be the new kid on the block today, but it will merge with the
Joker zeitgeist in the long run and have its influence on the character, even if in minor ways. That even includes the comics. I bet within five years, we see Joker doing elaborate dance scenes in the comic books.

Did B:TAS ever clarify?

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

Did B:TAS ever clarify?

B: TAS seemed to indulge in multiple choice for him too...Mask of the Phantasm cast him as a mobster who murdered Andrea's father, while an episode of the series focused on him having had a failed stand-up career as part of his backstory.

[CyberCubed]

Joker was never the red hood in B:TAS but he did fall into acid.

[sdp]

If we include the BTAS animated comics he did fall into acid and was the redhood but that comic clashes continuity wise with the show.

Haven't watched the movie but I mean people forget this is a comic book movie, I lol at those who wanted this to be "art" and rate it bad because it's at the end still a comic book movie, I just expect a good origin story for joker not 1984.

[AquaParade]

Wow, this movie could become the top grossing R-rated film of all time. It's already one of the most profitable comic book movies.

Guess who else still makes the list?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...o-gravity/amp/

[sdp]

I watched it friday night, it's ok. Needed more Joker, needed to be shorter, needed to be less pretentious of "what's real/what's in his mind". It's not a bad movie, it's not a great movie, it's somewhere in between, critics on both sides of the political spectrum made this movie out to be something it really wasn't.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Xav

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.

Not only that but media shows that Joker's skin is that natural color, not just face makeup. Harley, having been dunked into acid in recent years is the most obvious one though due to all the skin she's showing.

Anyways the movie was amazing. I find it kinda meta that Joker's killings had nothing to do with politics but the people in Gotham were trying to turn it into something political... Just like all the media out there trying to turn this political in real life. The media seemed to almost try too hard to provoke a shooting so they could point and say 'we were right!!'

The scene with the smaller dude did scare me cause I thought Joker was being a dick and only 'let him go' because he knew he'd be trapped and couldn't unlock the door himself. It did get a few laughs in theaters but then a sense of dread cause we thought his death was coming. I'm glad he let him go.

I think the deaths were the most shocking because they were realistic and not over the top special effects and lasers or whatever. Props to making that final gunshot look so realistic.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Leo656

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.

It’s Ace chemicals, you ****kng moron.

[MikeandRaph87]

Why can't Joker be Jack Napier, a failed comedian hurting for money played the fall guy in a botched robbery in which he ran next door and fell into a batch of chemical waste that turned him into the Joker we know today then lost his pregnant wife as a punishment for his failure?

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Why can't Joker be Jack Napier, a failed comedian hurting for money played the fall guy in a botched robbery in which he ran next door and fell into a batch of chemical waste that turned him into the Joker we know today then lost his pregnant wife as a punishment for his failure?

Because he shouldn't have a name. A past, sure, but his name should never, EVER be known.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Why can't Joker be Jack Napier, a failed comedian hurting for money played the fall guy in a botched robbery in which he ran next door and fell into a batch of chemical waste that turned him into the Joker we know today then lost his pregnant wife as a punishment for his failure?

Joker losing a pregnant wife is awful, I don't like the idea of Joker, even when he was "normal" having a woman he loved romantically and not just as a fling. Yuck.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Joker losing a pregnant wife is awful, I don't like the idea of Joker, even when he was "normal" having a woman he loved romantically and not just as a fling. Yuck.

Agreed. Far too cis-normal.

Joker should be gay. Or transgender.

Or am I missing the point you were trying to make?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

It’s Ace chemicals, you ****kng moron.

It's been either depending on the writer, child.

Wow, you really "got" me.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

Agreed. Far too cis-normal.

Joker should be gay. Or transgender.

Or am I missing the point you were trying to make?

No, he should be bi! That way his relationships with Harley AND Batman would both make perfect sense! (I kid, I kid....)

[Jester]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

pointless attack

Seriously Nines, this contributed nothing.

[Xav]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

Because he shouldn't have a name. A past, sure, but his name should never, EVER be known.

Why not? Various versions have given him a real name, Batman 89, Gotham, this film etc, and they all seemed to be liked well enough.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

Agreed. Far too cis-normal.

Joker should be gay. Or transgender.

Or am I missing the point you were trying to make?

Joker should never love someone romantically. He’s insane, it makes no sense. Joker having flings and one night stands is fine, but to romantically be involved? Joker cares for no one other than himself. And even pre-Joker he should not be like that.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

So, self-absorbed narcissist. Yeah, makes sense. Or, maybe losing that ONE person who actually matters to him is what drives him over the edge?

[LeotheLateBloomer]

I'm super late in giving my thoughts but hey, I'm living up to my name, lol. I watched this movie twice so that tells you that I really enjoyed it. I really felt for this version of the character though it was hard to tell which scenes were all in his head besides the ones involving his love interest, obviously. Some theorized that the entire movie was all in his head except the very end scene.

[IMJ]

One thing I do get sick of is the familial or poetic connection that film makers put into movies thinking it will make things somehow more artistic. It's become a trope.

"The villain knows the heroes secret ID because it makes it more personal". "The villains actions actually catalyze the murder that creates Batman". "The villain and the hero are lifelong friends who cry together at the end of the movie before one of them dies". "The villain is the father figure to the hero to create drama"

It's become a trope and a cliche, especially in superhero movies. That's also part of the reason why Ledger's Joker was so good. He was just there. And Batman had to stop him.