Joker (2019)

Reminds me of discussions of Falling Down.

Edited by Eschaton on Aug 28th 2019 at 5:20:43 AM

Yeah I roblem I have with the joker is that writer refuse to give him any background and just ram up the evilness is hard to give a damn about the joker, to see him huminized even a little bit would a good thing.

Joker has basically spent the entirety of the last decade as nothing more than a violent serial killer with none of the charm, humor, tragedy, or even barest bits of humanity that made him such a fun & enjoyable character.

Honestly a Joker with some level of complexity would offer some relief from the constant edginess.

Writer seen to forget that even in killing joke it make the joker somewhat pitable in a sense and batman really try to help him.

is a shame he have being flanderized to hell and back.

There's nothing wrong with humanizing the Joker. That I can agree with. It's trying to justify him, trying to make his actions seem excusable, that I find is taking things a bit too far.

It's also just kind of a dicey period to do a story of "let's make a movie about a white guy lashing out violently at the world heroically". You know, what with the whole climate of mass shootings and whatnot.

Once again real life ruins everything.

I still remember that there were (and maybe still are) a lot of people who thought the Joker's worldview was 100% right in The Dark Knight, and parroted his speeches with complete earnest.

This is despite the fact the Joker was proven wrong at the end of the film and as already mentioned, he didn't seem to really believe in what he saying most of the time. He just knew how to get under people's skin and convince them to embrace the darkest parts of their souls. Needless to say, I can totally predict people might walk away thinking the Joker was in the right, no matter how hard the film tries to say otherwise.

His spiel to Harvey in TDK, especially, is total bullshit. Yet there were still the tide of people latching onto it and claiming the character should never make plans.

It’s one of those things where so long is spent on letting the Joker spiel that the few minutes given to refuting his ideology look extremely small by comparison. The interrogation speech is culturally iconic, him frustratingly glancing at a clock is not. Kinda related to Do Not Do This Cool Thing.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 28th 2019 at 7:04:12 AM

Well, at some point you have to draw a line and simply accept that some people are always gonna be morons.

You can't blame Cristopher Nolan for the people who think the Joker was right, when the movie itself shows otherwise.

Most movies or series have examples of Misaimed Fandom.

There are many people who agree with Thanos, even when his ideology was refuted more than a century ago.

A lot might depend on how they treat the people inspired by Fleck in-universe. He seems to start some sort of movement but we still don't know how or why that plays out yet. If (when?) he does become truly villainous how will he be treated by his followers? Having them reject him would certainly make the point that he's crossed some sort of line.

I'm okay with this depiction. I don't share any of the problems mentioned thus far even if I have to acknowledge that it's probably not a good time for this movie to come out, or that people are bound to take the wrong message from it.

It looks like a fascinating take on the Joker and it's really the first "supervillain film" to come into existence. Suicide Squad ended up being a disappointment.

The most exciting part of this will be getting to see how the Joker functions without Batman in his path. He's become Batman's implied Ho Yay for so many years that seeing them not dynamically opposed is refreshing.

I know this is most likely a one-off movie with no sequel in mind...

...but I wouldn't be surprised if, at the very last scene, there's (at the very least) some allusion or nod to Batman.

(Bear in mind, I don’t want this as a sequel hook but as "And the Adventure Continues" thing that's saying, "yeah, it's over but someone has to reel in that Joker guy and it won't be the cops. We'll just let you guys decide how that works out."

EDIT: Apparently, Todd Phillips proposed having a DC Black Label for Joker.

But according to Phillips:

Say what you will about WB, but at least someone's learning from the "Dark Universe" fiasco, am I right?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Aug 29th 2019 at 9:57:03 AM

It's kind of funny, but I'd be fully behind this movie if it wasn't billed as a Joker film because this kind of dark moody drama is one of main jams as far as films go, but because it is a Joker movie I'm more in the cautiously optimistic camp in no small part due to getting burned by DC movies in the past.

The last few (Aquaman and Shazam) were enjoyable, if far different tonally.

Speaking of, I’m not too worried about Joker’s story being seen as justified. First because the film’s clear influences, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy clearly show their main characters to be deeply messed up regardless of any sympathy one may have for them (which is a difficult balance to strike) and two, the fact that Do Not Do This Cool Thing is a trope for a reason. How many people view Gordon Gecko, Jordan Belfort or the crew of Boiler Room as objects to be emulated? How many people missed the point of the speech of Glengarry Glen Ross, that Baldwin’s character was a poor example of motivation?

If the film fails to do that, I’ll retract my defense, but I feel like you can’t or shouldn’t adjust for people missing the point.

Edited by Beatman1 on Aug 29th 2019 at 2:51:58 PM

Au contraire...

I mean, you can also add Catwoman and Elektra, depending on how you view Catwoman and Elektra.

Edited by alliterator on Aug 29th 2019 at 4:37:16 AM

Split is an original property, it doesn't count.

I mean, by that metric, John Wick is essentially a comic book Anti-Hero.

Edited by HailMuffins on Aug 29th 2019 at 8:36:53 AM

And also Rambo, Jason, The Equalizer, The Accountant, Leatherface, the Jigsaw Killer, and pretty much every other vigilante action protagonist or slasher movie antagonist ever conceived.

Edited by Weirdguy149 on Aug 29th 2019 at 8:09:59 AM

Well his definition was "the first supervillain movie". I'm just pointing out that has technically been done before, and Split was explicitly written as a supervillain origin film in the comic book mold. First comic book supervillain movie, you'd have a case.

You also have Brightburn in that topic.

Edited by Gaon on Aug 29th 2019 at 5:54:13 AM

We should be getting early reviews soon now that the Venice Festival is going on. Now is a good time to hold your breaths.

(2) Fair.

Guess it's time to bounce. Early reviews don't do much for me. I don't think there's a single paid film critic out there who represents my taste in movies.

Edited by Soble on Aug 30th 2019 at 9:44:19 AM

personal feelings aside, early reviews are painting this as an Oscar hopeful. idk about how much I’ll like it, but it makes you wonder about the future of capeshit. Pretty cool.