DC Joker Movie

[seti88]

Iron man: I love you 3000.

Joker: I love you 3000? I?You?Three? Thousahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Edited October 4, 2019 by seti88

[jvmacross]

Is Batman or any other DC characters shown or mentioned in any way during the film?

[Bolt]

Zero , I believe. Haven't seen it yet. Some critics hail it as great. Others don't..

[Tking22]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Is Batman or any other DC characters shown or mentioned in any way during the film?

No, Bruce Wayne is in it, but he's just a kid when the events of the film go down. It's really not that kind of film, there's no hints there are any superheros or villains in this universe, and no metahumans or people with powers either. 

[seti88]

3 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Is Batman or any other DC characters shown or mentioned in any way during the film?

No, Bruce Wayne as a kid is as close as you get. And I think anyone wearing spandex with powers appearing in this show would ruin it. The realism is what makes the show pop.

 

[seti88]

Joker is a sweet guy actually....

Spoiler

He didn't kill his midget friend and also opened the door for him.

 

[seti88]

 

[sh9000]

I’ll check it out when I get a chance.

[kajnrig]

Man.... That was really disappointing. I wanted to like it. I was hoping it would be good, I kept hoping it would be good, and then it ended and it wasn't. It was just kind of... bland. Normal. Unsurprising. Run of the mill.

I dunno. It just feels like the writers or director(s?) or whoever just completely forgot the kind of character that Joker should be and gave us a story that built some guy up to become... some guy, but more violent. Like, I'm all for original takes, and again, I was really looking forward to this, but nowhere in this did I feel like any of the ideas that make up the collage of the Joker take shape, and those ideas that replaced them were way less interesting in every single way.

[sh9000]

[tekering]

Funny how quickly Jared Leto's Joker disappeared from the collective consciousness.  

[Kanedas Bike]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

Funny how quickly Jared Leto's Joker disappeared from the collective consciousness.  

Probably for the best. But then, there is the new Birds of Prey movie coming out with Margo Robbie's Harley Quinn to serve as a bleak reminder...

-b.

[Dynaman]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Funny how quickly Jared Leto's Joker disappeared from the collective consciousness.  

It's hard to keep track of them as they go by these days.

[sh9000]

[eXis10z]

On 10/5/2019 at 3:37 AM, jvmacross said:

Is Batman or any other DC characters shown or mentioned in any way during the film?

Spoiler

The Wayne family and Alfred were in it.

I found a lot of similarities between this movie and King of Comedy.

Edited October 9, 2019 by eXis10z

[Convectuoso]

I loved it, but the ending was too sudden. I was expecting for something else to happen at the end

[Big s]

I saw it over the weekend and wow, Joker is hands down the best DC movie I think I’ve ever seen. It’s such an emotional ride. I’m not even really sure what happened. And days after seeing it I’m still thinking about it. It’s not an easy film to watch, so I’m not sure if I want to rewatch it anytime soon, but it’s really great for a first viewing.

[seti88]

hahahahahahahahaha 

[pengbuzz]

In all of the various iterations of the Joker, I'm starting to wonder if all the various origin stories are true...

My theory:

The "Joker" is not simply one person, but in reality is a malevolent entity that possess and corrupts those whom life has cast down, despised, spit upon and ground to a pulp. And when that poor husk is used up, it simply moves to a new individual (or individuals) and merely starts again. This would go a great length to explain why batman doesn't "kill" the Joker:

He knows that it would simply transfer to another person, and he won't risk that.

That explanation would have to include that Bruce somehow discovered this, and discovered that this entity could not be contained by physical, electromagnetic or magical/divine means. So all that would be left would be to continually oppose it and keep tabs on it, while training those he has taken under his "wing" if you will for the next generation of guardians to keep track of the next husk this entity would corrupt once its' current host(s) are finished. Meantime, Bruce secretly continues a desperate race to discover a way to permanently destroy this thing.

Yeah, I know: plenty of gaping holes and probably takes from stories done to death already. But its at least an idea...

[Mazinger]

24 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

In all of the various iterations of the Joker, I'm starting to wonder if all the various origin stories are true...

My theory:

The "Joker" is not simply one person, but in reality is a malevolent entity that possess and corrupts those whom life has cast down, despised, spit upon and ground to a pulp. And when that poor husk is used up, it simply moves to a new individual (or individuals) and merely starts again.

And there you have yet another cool concept.

This is why Batman's rogues gallery is the best, the characters just lend themselves to so many classical archetypes.

[TehPW]

On 10/5/2019 at 11:11 PM, kajnrig said:

Man.... That was really disappointing. I wanted to like it. I was hoping it would be good, I kept hoping it would be good, and then it ended and it wasn't. It was just kind of... bland. Normal. Unsurprising. Run of the mill.

I dunno. It just feels like the writers or director(s?) or whoever just completely forgot the kind of character that Joker should be and gave us a story that built some guy up to become... some guy, but more violent. Like, I'm all for original takes, and again, I was really looking forward to this, but nowhere in this did I feel like any of the ideas that make up the collage of the Joker take shape, and those ideas that replaced them were way less interesting in every single way.

we must have seen two different versions of the film. I had literally in a death grip with my wife's hand (totally LOL'd at me). Its all about symbolism with this movie. more to the point is was less about backstory for BaTman's greatest foe, than a story about just how we as a society create the very threats that we fear, private or public: The Mentally Ill.

 

Now once the rioting reaches crescendo (and the ending begins), then it starts to cross that line into meta~DC universe... but take away ANYTHING batman... you have a story that chaotics of any alignment cheer and most of the Lawfuls have pursed lips in concern (Lawful Evils, being practical beings, speculate how they can make this work, still)...

personally speaking, if this film does not earn at least ONE Oscar next year, it'll be a disappointment.

Edited October 16, 2019 by TehPW
2nd thoughts... Oscar-worthy musical score? and spelling derps x many

[seti88]

51 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

In all of the various iterations of the Joker, I'm starting to wonder if all the various origin stories are true...

My theory:

The "Joker" is not simply one person, but in reality is a malevolent entity that possess and corrupts those whom life has cast down, despised, spit upon and ground to a pulp. And when that poor husk is used up, it simply moves to a new individual (or individuals) and merely starts again. This would go a great length to explain why batman doesn't "kill" the Joker:

He knows that it would simply transfer to another person, and he won't risk that.

That explanation would have to include that Bruce somehow discovered this, and discovered that this entity could not be contained by physical, electromagnetic or magical/divine means. So all that would be left would be to continually oppose it and keep tabs on it, while training those he has taken under his "wing" if you will for the next generation of guardians to keep track of the next husk this entity would corrupt once its' current host(s) are finished. Meantime, Bruce secretly continues a desperate race to discover a way to permanently destroy this thing.

Yeah, I know: plenty of gaping holes and probably takes from stories done to death already. But its at least an idea...

Hmm i kinda don't like these mumbo jumbo theories, sorry to say.
And not just abt the joker, but scripts in general that use alien races/forces that are the cause of all the mayhem.....its just too easy to explain away motives..

I prefer influences of circumstances/environment/human nature..i.e. a complicated/layered explanation instead...
 

[Dynaman]

I guess my "it's just the reboot de-jour" wouldn't be a well received theory?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

In all of the various iterations of the Joker, I'm starting to wonder if all the various origin stories are true...

As I understand it, the Joker is occasionally aware that he's actually a comic book character.

One could ask... is the Joker's medium-awareness a product of his insanity, or is the Joker insane because his medium-awareness comes with the knowledge that his past and the entire world he lives in really are multiple guess thanks to the increasingly frequent reboots, retcons, alternate universe stories, and crossover events that occur whenever sales start to slip on the comic.  Was he driven irrevocably mad by the knowledge that his increasingly fragmented reality and the many contradictory versions of himself exist purely for the entertainment of beings with the power to warp his reality at will?

(Seriously, this starts to sound downright Lovecraftian the more you think about it.)

 

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

The "Joker" is not simply one person, but in reality is a malevolent entity that possess and corrupts those whom life has cast down, despised, spit upon and ground to a pulp. And when that poor husk is used up, it simply moves to a new individual (or individuals) and merely starts again. This would go a great length to explain why batman doesn't "kill" the Joker:

He knows that it would simply transfer to another person, and he won't risk that.

Eh... that wasn't exactly a great idea when Star Trek did it back in 1967.

 

20 minutes ago, TehPW said:

we most have seen two different versions of the film. I had literally in a death grip with my wife's hand (totally LOL'd at me). Its all about symbolism with this movie. more to the point is was less about backstory for Badman's greatest foe, than a story about just how we as a society create the very threats that we fear, private or public: The Mentally Ill.

Really, I think the thing that makes this film is that it really isn't a comic book movie... it has the title of a comic book movie, but you could take that tenuous connection straight out of the film and virtually nothing would be changed by it.

[Chronocidal]

7 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As I understand it, the Joker is occasionally aware that he's actually a comic book character.

One could ask... is the Joker's medium-awareness a product of his insanity, or is the Joker insane because his medium-awareness comes with the knowledge that his past and the entire world he lives in really are multiple guess thanks to the increasingly frequent reboots, retcons, alternate universe stories, and crossover events that occur whenever sales start to slip on the comic.  Was he driven irrevocably mad by the knowledge that his increasingly fragmented reality and the many contradictory versions of himself exist purely for the entertainment of beings with the power to warp his reality at will?

(Seriously, this starts to sound downright Lovecraftian the more you think about it.)

Also reminds me a little of the entire arc with the Tenth Doctor and the Master, dealing with the drums driving him mad.  

In other news, I would absolutely watch this as a sequel.

 

[kajnrig]

8 hours ago, TehPW said:

a story about just how we as a society create the very threats that we fear, private or public: The Mentally Ill.

Gonna spoiler my entire post more because it's long (and unpopular opinion ) than because of spoilers (though there are those, too).

 

Yeah, that's what the 

end of the movie tells you the rest of the movie is about, but it's not a view supported by the rest of the movie. The rest of the movie isn't about a mentally ill person being transformed by society into a psychotic murderer. It's... well, first off it's a disjointed mess of a story, but secondly, it's about a person finding out that 1) he's mentally ill (or I guess more mentally ill than he originally thought he was), and 2) he gets off on killing people; with the key note being that the two never really go hand in hand.

(And a bit of a tangent: this whole lumping of "serial killer" with "mental illness" has been played to death by now, especially when study after study has shown that the mentally ill are more of a danger to themself than to others.)

So the final monologue, on top of not being supported by the rest of the movie, isn't even particularly deep. The memes are all about "Did you know we live in a society?!?!?!?" but that's not really all that far from the truth of how shallow that monologue is. It's the director speaking through Arthur, and he thinks he's saying something profound, but it's a thematic/sociopolitical statement that comes out of nowhere and doesn't go anywhere. On a character level, it feels like Arthur's just making excuses, blaming a conveniently nebulous "society" for his murders - which just so happen to all involve people he feels have slighted him in some way. Even then I think that would work well enough. But the movie clearly wants you to agree with him in that moment, it clearly thinks he's making a true and profound statement, and... no, you lost me there, movie.

(On another tangential note: The related commentary the movie wants to make about wealth disparity resulting from and further exacerbating a dysfunctional society... Ironically enough, this very serious not comic book at all art-house Oscar bait film is comical in its depiction of the rich. Like, Thomas Wayne is stupid, to the point that I honestly wondered how anyone could take him seriously as a mayoral candidate. "Oh, why can't these stupid disgusting peasants understand that I, Thomas Wayne, know what's best for them?" he more or less says at one point. "Why can't they better their worthless lives and become someone important like me, Thomas Wayne?" Like come on. I dunno, maybe that's reflective of actual early 80's political speech, but it's still exaggerated to the point of parody... and kind of weirdly out of place, when clearly the class warfare political drama is taking cues from and echoing Anonymous, Occupy, etc., ie more modern politics.)

Edited October 16, 2019 by kajnrig

[pengbuzz]

17 hours ago, seti88 said:

Hmm i kinda don't like these mumbo jumbo theories, sorry to say.
And not just abt the joker, but scripts in general that use alien races/forces that are the cause of all the mayhem.....its just too easy to explain away motives..

I prefer influences of circumstances/environment/human nature..i.e. a complicated/layered explanation instead...
 

I do not consider malevolent forces to be "mumbo jumbo", considering the state of the real world as it stands. Humans suck, but there are things underlying it all that human veracity alone cannot explain.

Anyways, departing this conversation now; I have a new policy in place that when folks don't like what I say, I don't bother staying for "act II" of the play.

[seti88]

 no worries.

I wasn’t going to explore the topic any further, and didn’t mean anything by the mumbo jumbo remark to u personally. Just couldn’t find the words.. 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Spoiler

14 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Ironically enough, this very serious not comic book at all art-house Oscar bait film is comical in its depiction of the rich. Like, Thomas Wayne is stupid, to the point that I honestly wondered how anyone could take him seriously as a mayoral candidate. "Oh, why can't these stupid disgusting peasants understand that I, Thomas Wayne, know what's best for them?" he more or less says at one point. "Why can't they better their worthless lives and become someone important like me, Thomas Wayne?" Like come on. I dunno, maybe that's reflective of actual early 80's political speech, but it's still exaggerated to the point of parody...

You're not wrong about it being political, but it really isn't exaggerated and it absolutely is a realistic depiction of the super-wealthy.

Discussing it here would be rather difficult, however, because it's basically ripped straight from the last three years of headlines about a prominent, very polarizing, political figure and his family who are notorious for their stupidity and for saying exactly that kind of thing with monotonous regularity and without a trace of irony.  Fortunately, the other super-rich who are stupid enough to say things like that in public like the Fords, Hiltons, Kardashians, etc. are generally dismissed as the drooling imbeciles they in fact are.

[electric indigo]

^ TY

[kajnrig]

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  Reveal hidden contents

You're not wrong about it being political, but it really isn't exaggerated and it absolutely is a realistic depiction of the super-wealthy.

Discussing it here would be rather difficult, however, because it's basically ripped straight from the last three years of headlines about a prominent, very polarizing, political figure and his family who are notorious for their stupidity and for saying exactly that kind of thing with monotonous regularity and without a trace of irony.  Fortunately, the other super-rich who are stupid enough to say things like that in public like the Fords, Hiltons, Kardashians, etc. are generally dismissed as the drooling imbeciles they in fact are.

1 hour ago, electric indigo said:

^ TY

 I knew even while writing that someone would inevitably bring that particular homunculus up.

[TangledThorns]

Saw it last night with the wife for date night. I liked it, really got lost in that sh*thole of Gotham that takes inspiration from other big cities that are about as awful; looking at you Baltimore, NYC, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Marvel may make big spectacle films but they have yet to be as Oscar worthy as DC's films.

Note: Black Panther was not Oscar worthy IMHO.

Edited October 20, 2019 by TangledThorns

[kajnrig]

Came across this and while I can take or leave most of his reviews, this one uncannily summarizes pretty much all of my issues with this movie in an easier to digest manner.

 

[AN/ALQ128]

13 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Saw it last night with the wife for date night. I liked it, really got lost in that sh*thole of Gotham that takes inspiration from other big cities that are about as awful; looking at you Baltimore, NYC, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Marvel may make big spectacle films but they have yet to be as Oscar worthy as DC's films.

Note: Black Panther was not Oscar worthy IMHO.

Went with my dad, he said it captured his memory of NYC in the 70's perfectly. 

 

[Black Valkyrie]

 

Just saw it, an awesome movie but its for everybody.