The sole consistency to Joker’s origins is that it always ends at Ace Chemicals. I could see them doing that without necessarily doing the vat of acid itself, in the same way Enter the Spider-verse gives Miles an “Uncle Ben Death” homage to motivate him, but changes all the circumstances and elements within it yet still nails the concept.
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
The Camp Crystal Lake Slasher
I think I have a good idea about how it goes for here. Joker by this point has a substantial amount of followers, most of which are more politically in-touch than he is. They rally at Ace Chemicals because the people in charge of it either knowingly or unknowingly put poison in the water, which they believe is the reason that Gotham is going to shit. Joker goes there, gets into a scuffle with the GCPD, and accidentally falls into acid. Since this is a more realistic tale, he dies a gruesome Reptile-esque death.
Jason has come back to kill for Mommy.
Yeah, I have a strong feeling Joker is not going to survive this movie. And if you still want to connect it to the larger DCEU, it could turn out that Arthur Fleck was just the first Joker, the one who inspired Present Day!Joker.
The whole standalone DC movies label is Exiled from Continuity, so if the Joker shows up in the main movies, it'll be a different character. In fact, that is apparently the whole reason Joaquin Pheonix took the role.
That aside: I. Fucking. Loved. This trailer. But especially Phoenix's performance. I didn't know much about him, but now I feel the urge to check his entire cinematography because he is just bloody brilliant here.
He's always been a good actor. His most famous role is probably Commodus from Ridley Scott's Gladiator
Edited by Draghinazzo on Apr 17th 2019 at 4:40:18 AM
Didn't say he was, just that what he showed in this trailer really impressed me.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
…I have only realized just now that that was the same guy. >.>
x3 Wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaa?
Jesus, the guy is utterly unrecognizable!
So the script has allegedly been leaked.
This person also gave the warning signs for Bv S.
But if true, fucking hell, they had to go down THAT path?
I read the spoiler.
Uh…the entire point is how The Joker became the monster clown we know and loathe, right? Like, we're not supposed to sympathize with him, right?
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on May 16th 2019 at 10:20:54 AM
Are we sure this isn't an American History X and Fight Club situation, where only complete dickheads could possibly miss the point the writers where going for?
We're supposed to sympathyze with him at the start where he's only a mentally ill man with a tough life, only for his actions at the end to make us go "dude, too much!"
Like Spec Ops The Line or Breaking Bad.
Edited by HailMuffins on May 16th 2019 at 9:04:16 AM
Like Spec Ops The Line or Breaking Bad.
In that case, I'm in two minds about it.
On one hand, if it happens after or at the halfway point where Arthur inevitably becomes committed to being the Joker, then it could be serviceable as the straw that breaks the camel's back and slam us into "dude, that's too much" mode.
On the other hand, if it happens in like the first 15-20 minutes, then we could have a problem…
In any case, the concept in and of itself is iffy to say the least.
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on May 16th 2019 at 8:14:23 AM
The Camp Crystal Lake Slasher
That spoiler does seem like something the Joker would do, so I'm not really bothered by this.
Jason has come back to kill for Mommy.The first guy talking about the film is Drew Mcweeny, film critic and screenwriter for over ten years. While that doesn't make his opinion foolproof by any means, it does make it more unlikely that he'd miss the point in such a way if this is the case. The second tweet of his even likens the film to Fight Club, but if Tyler Durden was the unironic hero.
Edited by Gaon on May 16th 2019 at 5:32:00 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Yeah, but I'm sure you know that a script lacks a ton of context that the finished movie would have, they are, as a rule, rather barebones.
Also I'm sharing this because I think it is cute:
Sounds more like he’s expecting that classic misinterpretation. Seriously, Fight Club is one of the most misunderstood films ever and it’s pretty much saying exactly what it means at the end. It’s not “2deep4u.”
Let us not forget that the alt-right has used The Matrix as a symbol for their "struggle".
You know, the movie where a white man is guided and educated into seeing past society's bullshit by a woman and a black man.
(I'm not even getting into how it was made by two transwomen because that's context we didn't have at the time)
Edited by HailMuffins on May 16th 2019 at 9:41:37 AM
To clarify where I'm coming from in this discussion, I'm a scriptwriter by trade with a graduation on Cinema and currently doing a Master's on it. I'm naturally going to be rather dim whenever something's script is described as being this level of disaster by another writer.
Plus, describing scripts as effectively useless for the quality of the finished film would be me looking down on my own profession and I'd never do that...in public at least.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
To clarify, it's not that I mean a script is useless (it is often the spine of a movie, after all), just that it is merely one aspect of film production and throwing a movie under the bus for it is shooting the gun a tad (something, to his credit, the writer admits isn't what anyone should be doing, though what isn't is his rather condescending tone and unwillingness to point it out in his actual tweets rather than bury it as an answer to someone else's).
There's also the fact that, in my eyes, accusing the movie of romanticizing the Joker and using Tyler Durden as an example is, for me, putting the blame on the wrong party: it's the assholes that celebrate, the very kind the movie skewers, that should be criticized and put, not the movie itself.
I dunno, I'm just very much against judging any piece of media because of the action of some of its fans, and am very skeptical about anyone who criticizes stories because "some asshole might misunderstand it".
I grew up as a gamer during the "videogames makes people turn into serial killers" times, I find it hard to accept such criticism even in the cases it is justified.
Naturally there are plenty of factors involved in a movie, but it's hard to blame anyone for stepping on the backpedal after such news. Particularly given the tone of the movie has been a concern since day one.
I think on this you misunderstood his criticism. He's saying the movie appeals to those assholes who misunderstood Fight Club. He's not saying the movie is easily misinterpretable, he's saying the movie is by itself like a misinterpretation of Fight Club. We don't know whether that criticism is justified or not, but it is a very valid concern.
The root of the question here when it comes to glorifying horrible characters is that it is easy to miss the nuance between "we affect media and media affects us and we should explore with care what we consume" (what I believe Drew Mcweeny is saying) and "media makes serial killers" (what you're afraid will happen). There's a fine line there.
If a film, hypothetically, portrays rapists as heroes, should it be blamed for rapes caused by people who watched it? Well, not entirely in such a 1-on-1 logistic, but it can't be denied that sort of scenario leads to normalization of toxic behavior that can be harmful to society, to varying levels.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Fair enough.
Either way I think we can all agree it is a bit early to make any definitive judgements about the film, though I can already predict it being pretty controversial.
Which is kind of appropriate, considering who it is about.
New image of Arthur Fleck[1]
Empire covers[1]
