Thats actually my problem. He IS close to the killing joke Joker. But, he fails in several aspects to him which in turn actually drives him away from the comics.
Ok, I just wanted to clear this up. Ledgers interpretation isn't the thing I have problems with. I am not talking about Ledger. Clear?
If you're going to complain about his portrayal then detail the aspects that you think 'drives him away from the comics'. To me, you seem to be assuming there's a single portrayal of him in the comics, which there quite clearly isn't, every writer has their own take on him and Nolan's one would fit in there just as well as anyone else's. This is the entire reason why Morrison came up with the idea that Joker is basically a blank slate who changes his personality on a whim.
To name ONE very vague one. The joker usually while he does completly insane things does it still with a plan/motivation in the backhand that drives him and he is trying to achieve. This was very apparent in Moores killing joke.
On the other hand what was Jokers reason (Yes, I know reason probably isn't the right word) in Dark Knight is just not there. Yes, he wants to teach Bats a lesson. But why, where is the connection? We have some really clichee basic back story about child abuse but that doesn't really explain much to it.
In the end I just have to assume that he suddenly got obsessed with Batman and started preparing and doing all those things. That suddenly Batman made him really crack after these decades since we can assume exactly through his backstory that he must have started slipping in his youth.
This is a very vague description of what I actually mean but anyway. Yes, I have my reason. No, Nolan isn't a perfect god in my opinion.
Thats actually my problem. He IS close to the killing joke Joker. But, he fails in several aspects to him which in turn actually drives him away from the comics.
Ok, I just wanted to clear this up. Ledgers interpretation isn't the thing I have problems with. I am not talking about Ledger. Clear?
If you're going to complain about his portrayal then detail the aspects that you think 'drives him away from the comics'. To me, you seem to be assuming there's a single portrayal of him in the comics, which there quite clearly isn't, every writer has their own take on him and Nolan's one would fit in there just as well as anyone else's. This is the entire reason why Morrison came up with the idea that Joker is basically a blank slate who changes his personality on a whim.
To name ONE very vague one. The joker usually while he does completly insane things does it still with a plan/motivation in the backhand that drives him and he is trying to achieve. This was very apparent in Moores killing joke.
On the other hand what was Jokers reason (Yes, I know reason probably isn't the right word) in Dark Knight is just not there. Yes, he wants to teach Bats a lesson. But why, where is the connection? We have some really clichee basic back story about child abuse but that doesn't really explain much to it.
In the end I just have to assume that he suddenly got obsessed with Batman and started preparing and doing all those things. That suddenly Batman made him really crack after these decades since we can assume exactly through his backstory that he must have started slipping in his youth.
This is a very vague description of what I actually mean but anyway. Yes, I have my reason. No, Nolan isn't a perfect god in my opinion.
The film lays it out perfectly, you're just not getting it. First, you can't take any of the Joker's supposed origins in that movie seriously, because they change each time he tells them. Second, he starts the movie off wanting to kill Batman, but along the way he starts seeing how similar they are and ends up wanting to bring Batman down to his level. I mean, the movie pretty clearly lays this out. His entire purpose is show everyone that deep down people are just like him, and given the proper circumstances will be just as crazy as he is. He succeeds with Dent, but fails with everyone else.
Sentry on
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wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
The film lays it out perfectly, you're just not getting it. First, you can't take any of the Joker's supposed origins in that movie seriously, because they change each time he tells them. Second, he starts the movie off wanting to kill Batman, but along the way he starts seeing how similar they are and ends up wanting to bring Batman down to his level. I mean, the movie pretty clearly lays this out. His entire purpose is show everyone that deep down people are just like him, and given the proper circumstances will be just as crazy as he is. He succeeds with Dent, but fails with everyone else.
Why?
Just, why?
Where is the connection?
Ah, of course. No, its perfect and I'm the dumb one for doubting it or taking it seriously when the movie wants me to take it seriously. Of course. The movie is perfect. Perfect.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Ah, of course. No, its perfect and I'm the dumb one for doubting it or taking it seriously when the movie wants me to take it seriously. Of course. The movie is perfect. Perfect.
I'm not saying you're dumb or that TDK is perfect, but Sentry's response up there is fine.
The Joker's motivations for all his insanity are pretty clearly portrayed in the film; at least as clearly as they are in various other Batman media.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
Because he sees himself as an avatar of chaos and disorder, a destructive force of nature, and likes a challenge?
The film lays it out perfectly, you're just not getting it. First, you can't take any of the Joker's supposed origins in that movie seriously, because they change each time he tells them. Second, he starts the movie off wanting to kill Batman, but along the way he starts seeing how similar they are and ends up wanting to bring Batman down to his level. I mean, the movie pretty clearly lays this out. His entire purpose is show everyone that deep down people are just like him, and given the proper circumstances will be just as crazy as he is. He succeeds with Dent, but fails with everyone else.
Why?
Just, why?
Where is the connection?
Ah, of course. No, its perfect and I'm the dumb one for doubting it or taking it seriously when the movie wants me to take it seriously. Of course. The movie is perfect. Perfect.
Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
I mean, I could understand your rage at the Joker's lack of motivation if A) they didn't directly spell it out in the film, and It didn't betray a fundamental lack of understanding about the Joker as a character. Fuck, they say it over and over again in the movie, the part I just quoted, the scene where he visits Dent in the hospital, the part where Batman has him suspended from the building at the end...
at this point, if you don't get his motivation it's because you are actively looking for a reason not to, and that's fine, but seriously, you should stop acting like you found some glaring flaw in Nolan's film making and just realize that something in you is broken and move on.
Sentry on
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When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
NO, I get that. I have analyzed much of it to death. I had this conversation before too. I know what is said in the movie but not half of it was actually convincing to me.
It still doesn't make sense for me.
There is still no actual connection. There is still no reason for him to step up take over and have a personal vendetta against him when Batman comes out after all this years he apparently did nothing. There is no actual connection to him.
Why did he react so strongly to Batman that he planned all this and did not before at any given moment. Insanity isn't just a plotelement you can use as an excuse for everything.
Sorry. No.
And again. IMO. It's fine if you disagree. And probably I could be wrong.
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MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
They actually bring that up at the end of Batman Begins. One of the thematic elements is 'escalation.' At first, there are just criminals and cops. The cops carry guns, the criminals carry bigger guns. The cops wear body armor, the criminals buy armor piercing rounds. A man dresses up in a suit to combat the criminal element, a criminal dresses up in a suit.
It's implied the only reason the Joker exists is because of Batman.
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Kind of the point of the Joker is that there is no point, right?
He doesn't have long term goals, doesn't follow any real pattern with his crimes, and doesn't have any set patterns of personal behavior. That's what makes him the anti-Batman.
NO, I get that. I have analyzed much of it to death. I had this conversation before too. I know what is said in the movie but not half of it was actually convincing to me.
It still doesn't make sense for me.
There is still no actual connection. There is still no reason for him to step up take over and have a personal vendetta against him when Batman comes out after all this years he apparently did nothing. There is no actual connection to him.
Why did he react so strongly to Batman that he planned all this and did not before at any given moment. Insanity isn't just a plotelement you can use as an excuse for everything.
Sorry. No.
And again. IMO. It's fine if you disagree. And probably I could be wrong.
The end of Batman Begins strongly suggests that the Joker appeared in response to Batman. That there was a guy, Joe Smith or whatever, who was a crazy motherfucker, but who did not commit crimes (at least not on a noticeable scale)... until Batman showed up. The Joker persona was adopted by "Joe Smith" in response to the Batman persona adopted by Bruce Wayne. Basically Joker looks at Batman and sees that by putting on a costume and making your own rules, you can enforce your vision upon the world. Batman's vision is a city without crime; Joker's is a city without sanity. Ah, he says. Now I see that nothing is stopping me from achieving this.
Okay, so "drive a city nuts" is a goal; but is it a motivation? You're right in that insanity isn't an acceptable motivation, and that's because it isn't--it's a value judgement on the nature of the motivation. (A man does not kill because he is insane; he kills because his dog told him he had to. We call that insane.)
In direct opposition to Batman, Joker has no motivations--or rather, as is explicit in the film, he has far too many. Look at all of the history of these characters, hundreds if not thousands of different authors bringing their own perspective to the two. Everybody agrees on why Batman is who he is--Dead Parents, Corrupt City, One Man's Metaphorical Vengeance. What they don't agree on is what the result is, whether he's a goofball in tights or a sadomasochistic psychotic or somewhere in between.
Joker, in contrast, everybody agrees on who that is, a crazy (or crazy-seeming) man with a black sense of humor and strictly anti-society views and expressions (from murder to homosexual undertones). What nobody agrees on is how he got that way. He's such a constructed symbolic character that, while you can come up with a theory ("oh, he's super-perceptive", "oh, he got shit upon by life until he exploded"), nobody's theory is conclusively correct. Eventually this becomes part of the mystique, a larger than life character with a "multiple choice" past. Asking for a conventionally coherent character backstory at this point is like hearing the joke "A man walks into a bar. Ouch" and wanting to hear if the man is an alcoholic or what.
That's okay, though. In order for the movie to work, you only need two levels of motivation: the scene-level, where we understand that Joker is setting off a bomb as part of his plan, and the film-level, where we understand that Joker's plan is intended to cause a certain effect in both Gotham and Batman. That third level--why he desires that certain effect--is hinted at, explained in contradictory terms, and then left to your imagination. It's a mystery... and good films can have mysteries. It's not a flaw. Look at the difference between the remake of Halloween, in which Meyers kills because he had a shitty childhood, and the original, in which he kills because he's the motherfucking Boogeyman, holy shit that's scary.
The instant the movie flashes back to Joker's childhood and his dad cuts him or whatever, the character instantly becomes much less scary, because we understand him; he is a person; he is no longer unpredictable, and no longer truly insane. The character, and the film, are reduced. The multiple choice question is better when it could be any option, or none of them.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited January 2011
In a podcast I listened to just yesterday, the hosts were talking about how Batman more or less kills in Batman: Arkham Asylum. The way Batman incapacitates inmates in the game sometimes can pretty much mean he's leaving them to die.
I think Batman's unwillingness to kill is a strong part of his character, and making him cross that line or constantly walk along it ruins him some.
As for the scene from Batman Returns with the big guy and the time bomb, I excused it because it was kinda funny.
In a podcast I listened to just yesterday, the hosts were talking about how Batman more or less kills in Batman: Arkham Asylum. The way Batman incapacitates inmates in the game sometimes can pretty much mean he's leaving them to die.
I think Batman's unwillingness to kill is a strong part of his character, and making him cross that line or constantly walk along it ruins him some.
As for the scene from Batman Returns with the big guy and the time bomb, I excused it because it was kinda funny.
In Arkham Asylum I always tried to get behind the bad guy and put them in a choker, or hang them upside down. I don't think I ever purposefully killed anyone unless it was a necessity driven by the storyline/impassable goals without ding it. Obviously the player dictates what type of Batman they'll become.
That sure was a great game though.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I only started Batman: Arkham Asylum yesterday (so many games so little time plus I was waiting for it to go cheap) and yeah there is one area where your saving guards and you see this one inmate who needs to be saved, considering your Batman I saved him and got an achievement for it as well. Is it possible to let him fall to his death? I'm guessing so but to me that's not how Batman is so it's not the way I'm playing.
It's been a while since I've seen TDK, but do the Joker's feelings towards Batman actually change?
Or did he just tell the mob that he could kill Batman because that's what they wanted to hear?
At first Joker wanted Batman dead since Bats was a force for all things justice and good.
Then after Joker had a change of heart, he began to feel a kinship with the dark knight, that they were essentially two peas in a pod even if Batman didn't want to hear any of it, so Joker went about to show how noble and good people could be torn down to his level and be like him. But he wasn't able to make Batman break his main rule despite his best attempts at it. It didn't really matter to the Joker if he himself died in the process, as long as he got Batman to break then he won. That's all that mattered.
It's been a while since I've seen TDK, but do the Joker's feelings towards Batman actually change?
Or did he just tell the mob that he could kill Batman because that's what they wanted to hear?
At first Joker wanted Batman dead since Bats was a force for all things justice and good.
Then after Joker had a change of heart, he began to feel a kinship with the dark knight, that they were essentially two peas in a pod even if Batman didn't want to hear any of it, so Joker went about to show how noble and good people could be torn down to his level and be like him. But he wasn't able to make Batman break his main rule despite his best attempts at it. It didn't really matter to the Joker if he himself died in the process, as long as he got Batman to break then he won. That's all that mattered.
Sounds like the typical Joker to me. He wants Batman to make the conscious choice of killing someone.
Not that it mattered in the end, everyone thinks Batman killed all those people that died. Which, no doubt, is going to be a big part of the theatrics of the third movie. Sure the criminals were scared of getting their ass kicked in the 2nd movie, and in the first they were just scared because holy fuck there's a giant dude beating us up. The third is going to be criminals shitting themselves when they see a shadow and think it's batman.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
It's been a while since I've seen TDK, but do the Joker's feelings towards Batman actually change?
Or did he just tell the mob that he could kill Batman because that's what they wanted to hear?
At first Joker wanted Batman dead since Bats was a force for all things justice and good.
Then after Joker had a change of heart, he began to feel a kinship with the dark knight, that they were essentially two peas in a pod even if Batman didn't want to hear any of it, so Joker went about to show how noble and good people could be torn down to his level and be like him. But he wasn't able to make Batman break his main rule despite his best attempts at it. It didn't really matter to the Joker if he himself died in the process, as long as he got Batman to break then he won. That's all that mattered.
Sounds like the typical Joker to me. He wants Batman to make the conscious choice of killing someone.
Not that it mattered in the end, everyone thinks Batman killed all those people that died. Which, no doubt, is going to be a big part of the theatrics of the third movie. Sure the criminals were scared of getting their ass kicked in the 2nd movie, and in the first they were just scared because holy fuck there's a giant dude beating us up. The third is going to be criminals shitting themselves when they see a shadow and think it's batman.
In some ways the typical Joker and in other ways not, it actually felt like this Joker had a purpose to some degree, the rest of the Jokers were plain psycho and crazy. I don't believe this Joker was as crazy as he appeared or should I say insane? He even denied being so when told he was crazy. He appeared to be quite rational most of the time only the way he thought of doing things was decidedly chaotic at best. He was a man out to prove something and bask in the chaos through which he created.
Yeah, no lie. This Joker had more motivation and purpose then almost any iteration of him in any other film or comic book. He was definitely purpose driven, which is why I find this conversation absolutely mindboggling, because if there is any character you don't NEED motivation for, it's the Joker, and yet Nolan went out of his way to provide it.
Seriously, it's like questioning the motivation of a tsunami or a tornado...
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Actually that was one of the things that I really did like about this Joker, he wasn't just spinning around in circles doing things because he was nutty as a fruitcake, he was actually out to do something and it added a bit to him that I had found lacking in the other Jokers for years now. It made him more believable and enjoyable as a villain in my view.
NO, I get that. I have analyzed much of it to death. I had this conversation before too. I know what is said in the movie but not half of it was actually convincing to me.
It still doesn't make sense for me.
There is still no actual connection. There is still no reason for him to step up take over and have a personal vendetta against him when Batman comes out after all this years he apparently did nothing. There is no actual connection to him.
Why did he react so strongly to Batman that he planned all this and did not before at any given moment. Insanity isn't just a plotelement you can use as an excuse for everything.
Sorry. No.
And again. IMO. It's fine if you disagree. And probably I could be wrong.
He's a dude who dresses up like a bat and beats up criminals and has the entire underworld in a panic, over just one single dude.
That's all the reason the Joker needs to target Batman.
If you're asking "Why now and not before." Then the only thing I can tell you honestly is "This is how movies work: Sometimes you have something happen before another thing."
At the end of Batman Begins I thought they mentioned that the Joker was one of the inmates that escaped from Arkham Asylum
No, Gordon gave bats a Joker card and said there was a new guy in town that dressed up like a clown and left thee card(s) at all of his crimes. It might have been implied by the proximity of that statement to the one about Arkham escapees, but there was no direct, explicit connection made.
OTOH, there's no reason he couldn't have been one, or that the Joker wasn't created by a combination of seeing Batman stalking the Asylum and a whole bunch of fear toxin, except that the GPD can't find any record of his prints, or any other identifying marks, when they have him locked up at the station. But I don't expect many asylums print their inmates, much less send those prints to the police, especially if the subject in question was independently wealthy and there voluntarily.
But I don't expect many asylums print their inmates, much less send those prints to the police, especially if the subject in question was independently wealthy and there voluntarily.
If he was there voluntarily, how could he be said to have escaped? Your explanation defeats the purpose of the explanation for why Joker appeared when he did.
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PwnanObrienHe's right, life sucks.Registered Userregular
In a podcast I listened to just yesterday, the hosts were talking about how Batman more or less kills in Batman: Arkham Asylum. The way Batman incapacitates inmates in the game sometimes can pretty much mean he's leaving them to die.
I think Batman's unwillingness to kill is a strong part of his character, and making him cross that line or constantly walk along it ruins him some.
As for the scene from Batman Returns with the big guy and the time bomb, I excused it because it was kinda funny.
In Arkham Asylum I always tried to get behind the bad guy and put them in a choker, or hang them upside down. I don't think I ever purposefully killed anyone unless it was a necessity driven by the storyline/impassable goals without ding it. Obviously the player dictates what type of Batman they'll become.
That sure was a great game though.
I think it's been said that dangling somebody upside down long enough would cause them to die from blood clots and blood pooling in the lungs.
Personal anecdote time: The first time I reached the old sewer (when you choke out the guy talking to the joker) I may have caused one of the five or so guys you fight to die. The last guy caught a kick to the head and in slow motion landed head first on an exposed pipe. Because of the lighting down there I couldn't tell if the pool that formed around his head was blood or water from the pipe. I knew it wasn't just a normal part of the environment because it actually grew specifically around his head.
So, apparently the type of Batman I became accidentally kills guys.
I don't think any of the dudes in the game are programmed to "bleed" so it had to have been water, if anything.
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PwnanObrienHe's right, life sucks.Registered Userregular
edited January 2011
That's what I think, but it was a pool of dark red water. So that means Rocksteady took the time to make the pipes breakable, which I can actually believe considering how detailed the rest of that game is.
I remember how it was said that with DX11 that papers would shuffle and fall apart from each other and other things like that would occur in the PC version compared to the console versions. So yeah that might have been the case with the pipe though that might be on all the versions as well.
You could always enter bat-sense mode and check his vitals too.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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PwnanObrienHe's right, life sucks.Registered Userregular
edited January 2011
It was on the 360 and it's early enough in the game that I didn't even consider using it to check on him until after I had gone around a corner and he had disappeared to save on memory.
Best case scenario there is that I left a man face-down in a growing pool of water with a head injury.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
If he was there voluntarily, how could he be said to have escaped? Your explanation defeats the purpose of the explanation for why Joker appeared when he did.
Because you're not supposed to leave without telling them you're going, voluntary entrant or not? Because that's how it works.
One problem with the whole checking yourself in thing, Arkham isn't a regular type of mental hospital, you don't just check yourself, it's a place for the criminally insane, those that are sent there are done so after they are caught via the police or Batman, you don't get a chance to just walk in and walk out (though in comics this does seem to be the case with how often they break out) so there was no way he was actually in it to begin with or they would have some trace of who he was.
The Joker in the animated show was pretty silly, I never took him serious at all, he was always threatening to do bad things but really, he came off as a crazy psycho clown without any real bite. This might have changed later on in the show, around the time of the name change to Batman & Robin and the animation style change I hardly ever saw it on TV so wasn't able to judge those episodes.
Though I do give credit to that episode with Clayface whose chasing that little girl and Robin is trying to protect her. I thought that was damn good.
Never had any bite?
There was that time he got ahold of a nuke...
And that's not getting into what happened every time you put the guy behind an automatic weapon of some sort.
I remember him being the guy who got scared of a common suburb dad and asked Bats to save him or was lowered down to a crowd of people with his pants down as people laughed.
Yeah he had no bite.
Those were two very weak episodes yeah, but what I remember him most for was the Joker gas that made people laugh until they went into comas, his stuff in Mask of the Phantasm, and the torture of Robin in the Batman Beyond movie. As a kid, I thought the Animated Series Joker was pretty darn scary.
if you read the dark knight returns he out right kills a guy with a machine gun...if you watch tim burtons batman he gives a guy an explosive and lets him blow up...batman has killed...recently he used a god killing bullet on darkseid and had this really assholeish shit eating grin when he did it and actually said "got ya" or something like "tag...your it"..or "it's been revoked"
The Joker in the animated show was pretty silly, I never took him serious at all, he was always threatening to do bad things but really, he came off as a crazy psycho clown without any real bite. This might have changed later on in the show, around the time of the name change to Batman & Robin and the animation style change I hardly ever saw it on TV so wasn't able to judge those episodes.
Though I do give credit to that episode with Clayface whose chasing that little girl and Robin is trying to protect her. I thought that was damn good.
Never had any bite?
There was that time he got ahold of a nuke...
And that's not getting into what happened every time you put the guy behind an automatic weapon of some sort.
I remember him being the guy who got scared of a common suburb dad and asked Bats to save him or was lowered down to a crowd of people with his pants down as people laughed.
Yeah he had no bite.
Those were two very weak episodes yeah, but what I remember him most for was the Joker gas that made people laugh until they went into comas, his stuff in Mask of the Phantasm, and the torture of Robin in the Batman Beyond movie. As a kid, I thought the Animated Series Joker was pretty darn scary.
I liked the Joker in the unrated Batman Beyond: Revenge of the Joker movie indeed, that was good, he was actually portrayed as being competent. Doesn't hurt he did torture and turn Robin into Joker Jr and shot what's his name with the bang gun, Kronk? Bonk? Whatever. But you couldn't get away with that on TV, hell they couldn't get away with it first even on the movie since it was originally censored.
JonGeric we covered most of that already several pages ago, in fact I said most of them.
Anyone ever read Shadowhawk? It was one of two comics I ever followed, but it's basically about Batman if he permanently crippled the criminals he comes across.
Later there was robots and time travel, but it started out serious business and was quite a riveting series.
batman has killed...recently he used a god killing bullet on darkseid and had this really assholeish shit eating grin when he did it and actually said "got ya" or something like "tag...your it"..or "it's been revoked"
Did you actually read the comic? Because I don't think you did.
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To name ONE very vague one. The joker usually while he does completly insane things does it still with a plan/motivation in the backhand that drives him and he is trying to achieve. This was very apparent in Moores killing joke.
On the other hand what was Jokers reason (Yes, I know reason probably isn't the right word) in Dark Knight is just not there. Yes, he wants to teach Bats a lesson. But why, where is the connection? We have some really clichee basic back story about child abuse but that doesn't really explain much to it.
In the end I just have to assume that he suddenly got obsessed with Batman and started preparing and doing all those things. That suddenly Batman made him really crack after these decades since we can assume exactly through his backstory that he must have started slipping in his youth.
This is a very vague description of what I actually mean but anyway. Yes, I have my reason. No, Nolan isn't a perfect god in my opinion.
The film lays it out perfectly, you're just not getting it. First, you can't take any of the Joker's supposed origins in that movie seriously, because they change each time he tells them. Second, he starts the movie off wanting to kill Batman, but along the way he starts seeing how similar they are and ends up wanting to bring Batman down to his level. I mean, the movie pretty clearly lays this out. His entire purpose is show everyone that deep down people are just like him, and given the proper circumstances will be just as crazy as he is. He succeeds with Dent, but fails with everyone else.
Why?
Just, why?
Where is the connection?
Ah, of course. No, its perfect and I'm the dumb one for doubting it or taking it seriously when the movie wants me to take it seriously. Of course. The movie is perfect. Perfect.
The Joker's motivations for all his insanity are pretty clearly portrayed in the film; at least as clearly as they are in various other Batman media.
Or, alternatively, why must there be a reason?
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I mean, I could understand your rage at the Joker's lack of motivation if A) they didn't directly spell it out in the film, and
at this point, if you don't get his motivation it's because you are actively looking for a reason not to, and that's fine, but seriously, you should stop acting like you found some glaring flaw in Nolan's film making and just realize that something in you is broken and move on.
It still doesn't make sense for me.
There is still no actual connection. There is still no reason for him to step up take over and have a personal vendetta against him when Batman comes out after all this years he apparently did nothing. There is no actual connection to him.
Why did he react so strongly to Batman that he planned all this and did not before at any given moment. Insanity isn't just a plotelement you can use as an excuse for everything.
Sorry. No.
And again. IMO. It's fine if you disagree. And probably I could be wrong.
It's implied the only reason the Joker exists is because of Batman.
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He doesn't have long term goals, doesn't follow any real pattern with his crimes, and doesn't have any set patterns of personal behavior. That's what makes him the anti-Batman.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The end of Batman Begins strongly suggests that the Joker appeared in response to Batman. That there was a guy, Joe Smith or whatever, who was a crazy motherfucker, but who did not commit crimes (at least not on a noticeable scale)... until Batman showed up. The Joker persona was adopted by "Joe Smith" in response to the Batman persona adopted by Bruce Wayne. Basically Joker looks at Batman and sees that by putting on a costume and making your own rules, you can enforce your vision upon the world. Batman's vision is a city without crime; Joker's is a city without sanity. Ah, he says. Now I see that nothing is stopping me from achieving this.
Okay, so "drive a city nuts" is a goal; but is it a motivation? You're right in that insanity isn't an acceptable motivation, and that's because it isn't--it's a value judgement on the nature of the motivation. (A man does not kill because he is insane; he kills because his dog told him he had to. We call that insane.)
In direct opposition to Batman, Joker has no motivations--or rather, as is explicit in the film, he has far too many. Look at all of the history of these characters, hundreds if not thousands of different authors bringing their own perspective to the two. Everybody agrees on why Batman is who he is--Dead Parents, Corrupt City, One Man's Metaphorical Vengeance. What they don't agree on is what the result is, whether he's a goofball in tights or a sadomasochistic psychotic or somewhere in between.
Joker, in contrast, everybody agrees on who that is, a crazy (or crazy-seeming) man with a black sense of humor and strictly anti-society views and expressions (from murder to homosexual undertones). What nobody agrees on is how he got that way. He's such a constructed symbolic character that, while you can come up with a theory ("oh, he's super-perceptive", "oh, he got shit upon by life until he exploded"), nobody's theory is conclusively correct. Eventually this becomes part of the mystique, a larger than life character with a "multiple choice" past. Asking for a conventionally coherent character backstory at this point is like hearing the joke "A man walks into a bar. Ouch" and wanting to hear if the man is an alcoholic or what.
That's okay, though. In order for the movie to work, you only need two levels of motivation: the scene-level, where we understand that Joker is setting off a bomb as part of his plan, and the film-level, where we understand that Joker's plan is intended to cause a certain effect in both Gotham and Batman. That third level--why he desires that certain effect--is hinted at, explained in contradictory terms, and then left to your imagination. It's a mystery... and good films can have mysteries. It's not a flaw. Look at the difference between the remake of Halloween, in which Meyers kills because he had a shitty childhood, and the original, in which he kills because he's the motherfucking Boogeyman, holy shit that's scary.
The instant the movie flashes back to Joker's childhood and his dad cuts him or whatever, the character instantly becomes much less scary, because we understand him; he is a person; he is no longer unpredictable, and no longer truly insane. The character, and the film, are reduced. The multiple choice question is better when it could be any option, or none of them.
I think Batman's unwillingness to kill is a strong part of his character, and making him cross that line or constantly walk along it ruins him some.
As for the scene from Batman Returns with the big guy and the time bomb, I excused it because it was kinda funny.
In Arkham Asylum I always tried to get behind the bad guy and put them in a choker, or hang them upside down. I don't think I ever purposefully killed anyone unless it was a necessity driven by the storyline/impassable goals without ding it. Obviously the player dictates what type of Batman they'll become.
That sure was a great game though.
Damn awesome game.
Or did he just tell the mob that he could kill Batman because that's what they wanted to hear?
At first Joker wanted Batman dead since Bats was a force for all things justice and good.
Then after Joker had a change of heart, he began to feel a kinship with the dark knight, that they were essentially two peas in a pod even if Batman didn't want to hear any of it, so Joker went about to show how noble and good people could be torn down to his level and be like him. But he wasn't able to make Batman break his main rule despite his best attempts at it. It didn't really matter to the Joker if he himself died in the process, as long as he got Batman to break then he won. That's all that mattered.
Sounds like the typical Joker to me. He wants Batman to make the conscious choice of killing someone.
Not that it mattered in the end, everyone thinks Batman killed all those people that died. Which, no doubt, is going to be a big part of the theatrics of the third movie. Sure the criminals were scared of getting their ass kicked in the 2nd movie, and in the first they were just scared because holy fuck there's a giant dude beating us up. The third is going to be criminals shitting themselves when they see a shadow and think it's batman.
In some ways the typical Joker and in other ways not, it actually felt like this Joker had a purpose to some degree, the rest of the Jokers were plain psycho and crazy. I don't believe this Joker was as crazy as he appeared or should I say insane? He even denied being so when told he was crazy. He appeared to be quite rational most of the time only the way he thought of doing things was decidedly chaotic at best. He was a man out to prove something and bask in the chaos through which he created.
Seriously, it's like questioning the motivation of a tsunami or a tornado...
He's a dude who dresses up like a bat and beats up criminals and has the entire underworld in a panic, over just one single dude.
That's all the reason the Joker needs to target Batman.
If you're asking "Why now and not before." Then the only thing I can tell you honestly is "This is how movies work: Sometimes you have something happen before another thing."
http://www.audioentropy.com/
OTOH, there's no reason he couldn't have been one, or that the Joker wasn't created by a combination of seeing Batman stalking the Asylum and a whole bunch of fear toxin, except that the GPD can't find any record of his prints, or any other identifying marks, when they have him locked up at the station. But I don't expect many asylums print their inmates, much less send those prints to the police, especially if the subject in question was independently wealthy and there voluntarily.
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If he was there voluntarily, how could he be said to have escaped? Your explanation defeats the purpose of the explanation for why Joker appeared when he did.
I think it's been said that dangling somebody upside down long enough would cause them to die from blood clots and blood pooling in the lungs.
Personal anecdote time: The first time I reached the old sewer (when you choke out the guy talking to the joker) I may have caused one of the five or so guys you fight to die. The last guy caught a kick to the head and in slow motion landed head first on an exposed pipe. Because of the lighting down there I couldn't tell if the pool that formed around his head was blood or water from the pipe. I knew it wasn't just a normal part of the environment because it actually grew specifically around his head.
So, apparently the type of Batman I became accidentally kills guys.
I remember how it was said that with DX11 that papers would shuffle and fall apart from each other and other things like that would occur in the PC version compared to the console versions. So yeah that might have been the case with the pipe though that might be on all the versions as well.
Best case scenario there is that I left a man face-down in a growing pool of water with a head injury.
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Those were two very weak episodes yeah, but what I remember him most for was the Joker gas that made people laugh until they went into comas, his stuff in Mask of the Phantasm, and the torture of Robin in the Batman Beyond movie. As a kid, I thought the Animated Series Joker was pretty darn scary.
I liked the Joker in the unrated Batman Beyond: Revenge of the Joker movie indeed, that was good, he was actually portrayed as being competent. Doesn't hurt he did torture and turn Robin into Joker Jr and shot what's his name with the bang gun, Kronk? Bonk? Whatever. But you couldn't get away with that on TV, hell they couldn't get away with it first even on the movie since it was originally censored.
JonGeric we covered most of that already several pages ago, in fact I said most of them.
Later there was robots and time travel, but it started out serious business and was quite a riveting series.
No that I didn't do, in my relationship it's my girl who makes the Lethal Weapon jokes. She's a huge fan.
Did you actually read the comic? Because I don't think you did.