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Joker (2019 Joker film)

Started by Ballad of Ballard Berkley, December 16, 2018, 08:38:21 AM

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SteveDave

Is this going to make the Joker a sympathetic character? I thought he was just an unhinged maniac? Now we find out he bathes his mom and was beaten up by no-good street punks! Poor thing.

Kelvin

Quote from: SteveDave on April 04, 2019, 09:43:46 AM
Is this going to make the Joker a sympathetic character? I thought he was just an unhinged maniac? Now we find out he bathes his mom and was beaten up by no-good street punks! Poor thing.

Despite the received opinion that The Joker doesn't have a known past, in reality almost every comic version has had some kind of background that was widely accepted by the audience. Gangster early on, then for years he had a tragic backstory as a failed comedian who was coerced into crime and lost his wife and unborn child. Currently his backstory is a nihilistic criminal who went full crazy when he fell in the chemicals.

They usually keep it fairly vague and suggest he could be misremembering, but in reality, those origins are pretty definitive and, in some cases, are designed to make his past more sympathetic. It's just very rarely touched on outside of those stories.

Harpo Speaks

I like the idea that the joker is such an unreliable narrator that you can never take anything he says himself about it at face value.

A bit like in The Dark Knight for example when he gives differing stories about how he got his scars.

lipsink

If this film is a critical/commercial success what's the bet they follow it up with a Batman film in that universe? I'd be pretty excited by the prospect of a proper grown-up Batman film.

Shaky

Quote from: SteveDave on April 04, 2019, 09:43:46 AM
Is this going to make the Joker a sympathetic character? I thought he was just an unhinged maniac? Now we find out he bathes his mom and was beaten up by no-good street punks! Poor thing.

As this seems to be a "What if?" spin off to be enjoyed on it's own, I don't mind it going on a few tangents away from the usual tale. I doubt we'll ever see Phoenix's Joker doing a cameo in Aquaman 3 or whatever.

greenman

I'm guessing that like Logan this is going to be a self contained film rather than trying to feed into any larger franchise? I spose it could have self contained sequels.

Seems like a bit of a mix of Pheonix's characters in The Master and You Were Never Really Here, even has him looking after his mother as in the latter.

Wet Blanket

Quote from: lipsink on April 04, 2019, 01:19:17 PM
If this film is a critical/commercial success what's the bet they follow it up with a Batman film in that universe? I'd be pretty excited by the prospect of a proper grown-up Batman film.

Don't the Christopher Nolan ones count as grown up Batman films?

Do you mean grown up as in there should be films like Kramer v Kramer or a Question of Silence, but with Batmans and Wolverines in them, or 'more violent', like Logan?

lipsink

Quote from: Wet Blanket on April 04, 2019, 01:37:46 PM
Don't the Christopher Nolan ones count as grown up Batman films?

Do you mean grown up as in there should be films like Kramer v Kramer or a Question of Silence, but with Batmans and Wolverines in them, or 'more violent', like Logan?

Yeah, the Nolan films were pretty grown up but I suppose I just meant more violent and 15/18 Certificate films.

I found Logan a bit ridiculous to be honest with every character saying "FuckFuckFUCKFuckFuck..." and other characters appearing in it for 5 seconds and then getting needlessly slaughtered in graphic detail. Just calm down already.

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: Wet Blanket on April 04, 2019, 01:37:46 PM
Don't the Christopher Nolan ones count as grown up Batman films?

Do you mean grown up as in there should be films like Kramer v Kramer or a Question of Silence, but with Batmans and Wolverines in them, or 'more violent', like Logan?

Schindler's List, but Amon Goeth is actually the Condiment King.

Wet Blanket

Quote from: lipsink on April 04, 2019, 01:41:58 PM
Yeah, the Nolan films were pretty grown up but I suppose I just meant more violent and 15/18 Certificate films.

I found Logan a bit ridiculous to be honest with every character saying "FuckFuckFUCKFuckFuck..." and other characters appearing in it for 5 seconds and then getting needlessly slaughtered in graphic detail. Just calm down already.

Yeah I strongly disliked Logan. Blood guts and swearing strikes me as actually quite juvenile - but it's shorthand for 'mature content' in a lot of comics too. It worked for me in the more irreverent Deadpool films though. I've always thought a remake of The Mask would be interesting if it followed the template of the original comics series, in which the 'hero' behaves like a cartoon but this has genuinely violent repercussions around him.

The trailer for Joker is intriguing but like someone said above, I'm not sure I want him to be a sad-sack gone nuts.

Avril Lavigne

Quote from: Wet Blanket on April 04, 2019, 01:47:05 PM
I've always thought a remake of The Mask would be interesting if it followed the template of the original comics series, in which the 'hero' behaves like a cartoon but this has genuinely violent repercussions around him.

I've wanted that to happen for years, preferably with Nic Cage as Stanley Ipkiss, alternating between sad-sack & full-blown-crazy modes.  Ipkiss even looks like Cage in some of the panels.


phantom_power

Just saw a tweet saying "No thanks, the Joker movie. If I want to hear about a white guy who starts murdering people because he got picked on, I'll just watch the news."

I am just trying to work out whether that is the shittest hot take on a film no-one has seen yet, or the shittest hot take in the history of the internet (which is when hot takes were invented)

Oh man, if you want hot takes, I got 'em



One of them is a real person and political candidate, and the other one is the clown who fights Batman

Kelvin

Fucking nailed the dichotomy of straight men, though, didn't he.

beanheadmcginty

How come it was always Batman and The Joker, but these days people have started saying The Batman and Joker?

phantom_power

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 04, 2019, 10:04:25 PM
Oh man, if you want hot takes, I got 'em



One of them is a real person and political candidate, and the other one is the clown who fights Batman

And why is it just straight men? Can gay men not tell the difference between reality and fiction?

SavageHedgehog

Quote from: Puce Moment on April 03, 2019, 04:05:18 PM
I stopped that trailer quick because I was pretty much sold in the first 20 seconds. Imagine if they stop doing shitty fan-service comic book adaptations for man-children, and started doing this instead?

I'm not sure "the edgy secret origin of your favourite evil clown" is completely alien in appeal to the man-child demographic. Maybe the child in this case is a fairly advanced 10 year old, or perhaps a young teen. But still.

But I am a man-child, and yes this is more my bag than Avengers: Endgame.

Kelvin

Apparently that little boy in the trailer is Bruce Wayne, in which case I look forward to a sequel where Batman has to repeatedly return The Joker to Arkham Retirement Home, after preventing his latest reign of terror on Gotham Bowling Green.

Dr Sanchez

Joaquin Phoenix is a good actor. I find him very likeable even when he's playing a complete cunt weasel and he's done some great stuff recently.

I don't really give two hoots about comic book stuff, it's all much of a muchness to me but this looks good in it's own right.

Does anyone know what rating it has yet?

The thing with those Twitter quotes is that they're terrible takes but they do sort of underline what my biggest problem is with this film - regardless of quality it's going to become fucking tiresome because you know this is going to be the latest battle ground and it's already being set up that if you like it you're right wing and if you dislike it you're reacting against the kind of following it's inevitably going to draw. Talking about it on its own merits is going to be impossible because battle lines are being drawn on the basis of a teaser.

Probably a big difference in how these things are talked about online/offline

But yeah, 'the discourse' is going to be tedious as hell

chveik

I don't get it. why would this film be more right wing than any other blockbuster?


phantom_power

Those cunts will turn anything into a meme that supports their stupid ideals. There is nothing intrinsically right wing about The Joker is there? Batman maybe but not The Joker

Difficult to think of a character that is more ideologically incoherent than the Joker

machotrouts

The Joker is a radical centrist

Mister Six

He's chaotic evil. So libertarian, basically.

Kelvin

Modern Joker is basically an anarchist, ostensibly opposed to any and all restrictions or control, even on an individual level. It's probably that which appeals to right wing edge lords, even though anarchism isn't inherently right wing. He's a character who pushes back against everyone and everything trying to limit what he says and how he behaves. Someone who tears down any pretense of societal or moral authority. That sort of character can be cathartic for all kinds of people, but the Alt-Right make more memes.

Mister Six

I don't think The Joker has any definable political interests or urges. He's not an anarchist, he's a force of chaos. He fucks with authority because he thinks it's funny and kills the homeless because he thinks that's funny too.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Mister Six on April 05, 2019, 08:33:39 PM
He's chaotic evil. So libertarian, basically.

Bet he reads The Guardian.