A lot of people say that Ledger's Joker was more "evil", and more "random" than Nicholson's, but I strongly disagree.
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TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 10:42 AM)
The fact that Nicholson's joker thought he was simply trying to create Art with his killings, instead of trying to teach people a message, I find him more evil and crazy. I do think that each Joker does fit the universe that was created for them.
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clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 10:50 AM)
That's a fair pointtwo different interpretations.
But I don't think Burton's movie executed its vision as well as Nolan's, overall.
And I don't believe Ledger's Joker is trying to teach anybody anything. I think he just wants to see the world burn. -
TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 10:51 AM)
Well he wants to prove that he can turn people that are supposed to be good into him. He fails with the boats but wins with Two Face.
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clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 11:10 AM)
I take him seriously when he says he's like a dog chasing a car, and wouldn't know what to do if he caught it. He has no clear agenda, he just wants to create chaos. Batman wants order. So there's a clear dichotomy there.
With the Burton film, it wasn't so clear-cutJoker's just a criminal to him, and criminals killed his parents, and then it turned out Joker killed his parents before he was Joker (which was a dumb twist). The order vs. chaos thing is there, but not very well delineated.
I actually prefer Batman Returns to the first BatmanI thought Bruce and Selina were a great duo (with DeVito in-between), whereas Keaton and Nicholson never really meshed. -
TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 11:18 AM)
In order for the Ledger's Joker to pull off what he did, he would have had to not only have a plan but a detailed plan with backups to that plan. Both Joker's wanted to spread anarchy, but for different motivations.
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clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 11:40 AM)
No, I don't agree. He improvises in response to how others react to his actions. He never had a plan that said "I'm going to end up on top of a building fighting Batman while people on two boats blow each other up." He made it up as he went along. That's much more believable than the usual Supervillain master plan that is too impossibly contrived, and seems to depend on the hero NOT getting killed until the very end, even though there are ample opportunities for that to happen.
I agree Nicholson's Joker sees himself as some kind of artist (it's not a point the movie makes subtly), but how does that make him Batman's opposite? Batman isn't opposed to art. Bruce Wayne collects art. -
TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 12:22 PM)
In order for everything to have worked out the way it did, he couldn't have made it up as he goes. It is a great plan but still a plan.
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clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 01:09 PM)
Sure he could. The hard part to believe is that he can get all these guys to follow him, when he's killing them right and left (but that's also true of Nicholson's Joker, who summarily executes one of his most loyal followers, in public, for no reason).
But once he's got the people, and the dynamite, and the gasoline, he can just riff. Like he didn't know he was going to say "I'm going to kill people until Batman gives himself up" until he did it. He said "Kill The Batman!" then he decided he never wanted to kill Batman, because he's too much fun.
I think most of what he did, he didn't know he was going to do it until a day or two before he did, at most. Sometimes mere hours. His basic plan was there from the start, but it was almost infinitely adaptable.
Now the plan in the next Nolan Batman movie was just flat-out stupid, and dependent on a whole lot of things happening just so, which was one of the reasons that movie isn't as good. -
TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 01:11 PM)
We can both agree on the third movie. I am actually a fan of the first two Nolan batman movies, just don't like the third one.
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clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 01:15 PM)
I liked Hathaway's Catwoman a lotbest one ever. I liked a lot of individual moments in the movie. But I think losing Ledger really knocked Nolan off-balance, and he made terrible choices for the final villains. Bane SUCKS.
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TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 01:17 PM)
Like Ledger's Joker, I did feel Hathaway's Catwoman did fit that universe well. Bane sucked, especially when he starts out as the master villain that takes down Batman to a love sick bodyguard. I could complain about other things but don't want to go on a rant.
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TheFatDruidofNacyl — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 11:25 AM)
I liked both versions because they brought a different style to fit the feel of each movie.
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clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 11:41 AM)
I thought Nicholson was basically playing himselfas he did in most of his movies by that point in his career. Not his real self, but his public image, this general Jack Nicholson character he did in movie after movie, only more psychotic and with face paint in this one.
And that worked. I mean, he's the only actor people ever heard was cast to play The Joker and they all said "Of course!"
But that doesn't make him the best. Just the most obvious. -
clyons — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 12:16 PM)
But that's my pointhe'd already played this character. Many times before. He'd done The Shining almost ten years earlier (and it's a much better scarier more powerful performance).
Ledger came up with his Joker from scratchso did Romero, so did Hamill (of course they only had to do the voice). If you ONLY listened to the audio you wouldn't know it was them, even if you knew their other work very well.
Whereas if you had no idea who played Joker in this movie, and you just listened to the soundtrack, you'd say "It's Jack!" He made no attempt to create a new voice. He's playing his standard psycho killer character, which isn't all that different really from his standard romantic comedy character.