-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
JOKER |OT| Viviamo in una società |SPOILERS|
- Thread starter Cpt-GargameL
- Start date
A general reality for living in a city is avoid conflict, especially Gotham city seems on edge all the time. Don't chase groups of teenagers down alleyways or argue with drunk people on public transport.
He definitively kills her in the old script?? Lmao wow that would have knocked this from a 6 to a 4 instantly for me.
That was never a part of the script. She was alive and watching him on the Murray show in test screenings.
I don't think that happened, there's a filmed scene from the script that got cut just before dancing on the steps where he leaves flowers at her door telling her to watch the Murray show.
Nope. Saying that it felt unnecessary and there could have been better factors to lead him to lashing out than random beatings by random people.
Joker has around 20 years to develop into the "criminal mastermind" that is Batman's rival. Bruce in this movie is just a 10 year old, so there is plenty of time for Joker to evolve.
like everyone has said she is alive in the script
besides she didn't actually "wrong" him in any way
Just watched this earlier tonight. I thought it was pretty good, but I feel like the movie could have done a lot more to make the audience uncomfortable. I expected some real shit after reading all the hype around this but nothing here was really that bad. I don't know maybe it's just me. I do appreciate the ambiguity in parts and can appreciate he's only shown climbing the stairs before he's the Joker and descends them after fully becoming the Joker. The talk show scene is some real good shit. Last twenty minutes were honestly perfect.
This sequence is obviously based/inverted on the Bernhard Goetz subway shooting. When it first happened, Bernie was a hero to many. The NYC subway was dangerous, and he was acquitted of the shooting (even though he also stood over one of his victims and shot them). He served under a year in prison for illegal gun possession. By the time his civil suit was finished a decade later, the city/subway had changed enough that he was found liable. Gotham City is not based on some fantastical version of Manhattan, it's all/only the shitty parts. Watch the 1981 movie Wolfen with its blocks and blocks of destroyed South Bronx landscape to see how bad NYC was back then. Random beatings by random people happened all the time.
Which would seem like a weirder decision to cut those scenes to make it more ambiguous about her fate and his purpose of being in her apartment.
I'm not even that versed on how Thomas Wayne was as a person, but I thought it was weird that they didn't just make him seem to have a darker side we don't see in typical depictions to make the character more nuanced but instead it just straight up make him a fairly unsympathetic asshole. Bruce not only had an asshole role model as a father, but they made Alfred an asshole as well for good measure.
Does that mean that in this universe, Bruce becomes a total asshole and Joker is actually a hero by comparison?
In the real world, most billionaires are unsympathetic assholes who live on a different plane of reality to poor and mentally ill people. As for Alfred, some dude showed up at Wayne manor and started grabbing Bruce's face so us not seeing the best side of him is understandable.
I think in this universe, Bruce would have grown up to be a rich asshole if it weren't for the murder of both his parents but most fictional billionaires are assholes until they have a traumatic or humanising experience to change them. Tony Stark for example
But why add nuance to Joker but not Thomas?
Was the goal just to subvert heroes to become the 2 dimensional villains and villains to become more complex, sympathetic anti-heroes?
Because Arthur/Joker is the main character of the movie. Why would they waste screen time in an already 2 hour movie to flesh out Thomas Wayne. Especially when his fate was dying at the end of the movie?
I'm not talking about giving a supporting character a separate arc and b-story, I'm saying they made a conscious decision to portray the character the way they did, a character I assume isn't typically a total asshole and douchebag, and I wonder what that reason was.
It's not a matter of "why waste the screen time when he'll die anyways".
He barely shows up in the movie though. He interacts with Arthur once, after Arthur harassed his son. Arthur cornered him in a public restroom, I wouldn't even give the time of day to someone who did that to me.
Saw this yesterday and while it had style it felt like the overall message is really confused. It frames it's self as clearly anti-rich and anti-austerity but all has those angry at these idolise a literal supervillain. But at least it feels like it's trying to same something.
I even found Joaquin a little disappointing but I think that's because of how heavy handed the script is especially in the first half. He's great once's he's able to let loose with the physical aspects.
Overall I liked it and it was the third best film I saw yesterday (after The Elephant Man and A Hidden Life).
I even found Joaquin a little disappointing but I think that's because of how heavy handed the script is especially in the first half. He's great once's he's able to let loose with the physical aspects.
Overall I liked it and it was the third best film I saw yesterday (after The Elephant Man and A Hidden Life).
I can't wait for a home release of this just so that I can pause on his diary and go through everything that's written.
Because the movie is about Joker and not the Waynes? Because there are plenty of movies that focus on Bruce while portraying Joker as an unsympathetic maniac and this movie wanted to put its focus elsewhere? It also doesn't portray Bruce as a villain but we all know what happens to him after this and his dad being a rich asshole doesn't really affect that path
Got out from seeing it, what a fucked up movie, It was amazing. Really liked that it didn't tip its hand too much in showing what was real and what wasn't. Gonna be thinking about this one for awhile
Making Thomas a person who wants to make the city better but also kind of a dick is adding nuance.
Saw it again, damn i love this movie so much. Really hope all that nonsense about oscar voters avoiding the movie isnt true. Joaquin deserves all the awards.
Arthur was a monster that just wanted to fit into society. The society was the only thing to hold him back from being the monster he is. It was once that society wasn't bearable to live in anymore, was when the monster got to do his thing. Once he killed Murray, he gives his genuine laugh, because at that moment, he knew who he truly was. If he was born a monster or made into a monster is the age old question behavior scientist have been questioning since the beginning.
I mean nuance through his actions. Saying he wants to make the city better could be interpreted as empty politician promises, especially when you learn that he is a dick. It throws out all the praise that Penny Fleck gives him since you are shown that Penny's word can't be trusted.
Speaking of Penny, I have a problem with the movie supposedly portraying a compassionate and realistic view of mental illness when we are given all the reasons in the world to feel sympathy for Arthur, but Penny is shown to not only be delusional with a personality disorder, but framed by Arthur as a liar who enabled, defended, and allowed his abuse. The film's whole view of her, by proxy of her abusive boyfriend, turns on her, going from showing her being the only person who really cares for Arthur to keeping the secret about Thomas Wayne being his father to then lying to him twice (since he wasn't an illegitimate son of Thomas but adopted and abused) and suddenly she is practically so weak she is in a coma unable to defend her actions and we are with Arthur seething in his rage of betrayal at his lowest and most sympathetic point.
Arthur says the world wants someone with mental illness to act like they don't have it, but after finding out about his mother's own serious mental illness and personality disorder that lead to her own lies to Arthur, Arthur doesn't regard that mental illness with some understanding and compassion, but like she is a liar that doesn't have a mental illness. Being in Arthur's position having to live with a caretaker like that would be awful and wouldn't excuse her actions, but it is a complex issue that does help explain why she acts the way she does, just as his own mental illness doesn't excuse his actions but helps explain why he acts the way he does. I don't think this movie really cares to get into any of that though, and would rather use mental illness as a catalyst for the characters actions than a real honest look at how really difficult it could be for someone to live with mental illness in themselves as well as with others, especially a parent, without having to make it all about outside influences being so cruel to them or enabling them to be cruel to others.
The movie doesn't really do nuance, at all.
Honestly I got a blend of both from Joker, especially during the Murray interview with Arthur. I couldn't feel sympathetic for him by the end. I got the sense that Joker was in a way his true self.
I mean this is purely subjective. Both questions can be interesting. But he seems to be framing Joker in a reductive way. The mental illness aspect adds nuance to the question. It's not just 'us' or society or his mental issues. It's a mix of everything. Iit's society's fault that Author didn't have the support he needed. Access to meds, a competent psychologist, etc. And he didn't choose his abusive parents and mental issues. The descent into Joker is tragic, and yeah by that point you have to blame him for his atrocities. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't reflect and try to fix aspects of society that nudged him on his dark path.
Yeah I totally agree.
Turning Joker into an introvert that get his meds cut so he goes postal was lame, I hoped he would break out of his shell and transcends Arthur Fleck like the cocky dance sequence would indicate. But no, still whimpering until the last moments.
I could have taken 15 minutes less of dramatic and tortured twisting, it just go so embarrassing.
I enjoyed that take too, I wonder if it's something that can be developed further in other Batman stories.
I would like to see Bruce Wayne struggle with the fact that his father was an asshole and how it affects his philanthropic ways in the eyes of Gotham's citizens.
He's got a ton of great ones
The movie is really stereotypical with its approach to mental illness
It's a message of fear not compassion
i don't really think the movie removes responsibility from Joker at all. It's a perspective thing.
we are experiencing events from his perspective. of course it's going to seem that way. if the movie was following anyone else it would have been completely different.
everyone knows Joker is a villain. You really think a movie about a villain is going to focus on responsibility for the bad guy?
we are experiencing events from his perspective. of course it's going to seem that way. if the movie was following anyone else it would have been completely different.
everyone knows Joker is a villain. You really think a movie about a villain is going to focus on responsibility for the bad guy?
Except no.
The movie does not show that Arthur is a monster from the get go.
Ultimately, we're getting events from Arthur's experience, so this seems like a bit of a moot point. The movie not touching the personal depths you specifically wanted does not mean it objectively lacks nuance. I wonder what film you were watching if you expected a person as fundamentally damaged as arthur to take all of that into consideration and then self-reflect on the matter. Arthur is sympathetic, sure, but at no point does he seem personally concerned with the lives of others just the same and I personally don't think the movie paints him as better than anyone else when you take that into account. Also, what's with calling Alfred an asshole? He reacted normally given the situation.
Last edited:
How do people not get that Arthur is clearly shown to be a psychopathic villain in this movie? Pay closer attention to the subway scene. He thinks the guys bothering that woman is funny. He then hunts one of the men down and murders him in cold blood which he then follows up with a dance because of how good it made him feel. He goes on to murder three more people because they slighted him in some way and a fourth seemingly just for fun which he follows up with a gleeful dance through the halls of Arkham. As he says in the Murray show he doesn't give a shit about the poor or the movements ideas. Selfishly he only cares about the recognition and joy it brings to himself.
And this is why I think the movie isn't having an anti rich message.
All of the supporters are portrayed as dangerous and looters. There is no major character on the side of the common man.
Meanwhile, dick he may be, Thomas Wayne had the humanizing element of not wanting a stranger touching his son. And the Jay Leno character had the decency to debate that not everyone in Gotham is horrible and called out Arthur on his pity party.
Because to truly take down the rich, you become the collective! :p
i feel like the anti rich stuff isn't the point of the movie
When Arthur tells Murray that he isn't political, he's telling the truth. He didn't kill any of those people to make a statement, he just did it because he thought they were awful people that deserved to die, and he enjoyed it. The rioters latched onto this as fuel for their own movement.
The mob riot anti richstuff isn't the point of the story, it's just used as a device to give Arthur recognition by people and for him to cause chaos. The whole point is Arthur's acknowledgement, more than anything, and what he had to do to get it.
i dunno if the movie really has an overarching message tbh, at least from my perspective. it's more of a character study than anything.
wat?
after killing those guys the dude goes to dance in the bathroom.