Burton Trilogy

[burtongenius]

The way I think about it, the joker is very simple.  He falls into a vat of chemicals, he goes crazy because of how he looks like a clown/"joker" entity, and he goes and kills everybody because of a combination of grissom backstabbing him and just the way he looks.  Whoever posted about alex ross was dead right.  I think I saw that on a youtube video once too.  Couldn't find it again.  The origin definetely wouldn't have worked if he wasn't bad to begin with.  The crazy part would've worked but him backing up his craziness with homocidal killing wouldn't work.  Its like having a gun without the bullets.  You have the gun (chemical spill) but you can't channel it without previous bad gangster life experience.  And I think burton put all these pieces together beautifully and simply.
    As far as saying its okay to have different versions, I think that is confusing and a real copout. Who is the joker if he can have so many fancy schmancy interpetations?  The way to find out the true origin that really makes sense in our world is to use the comic book information and put it through the filter of reason and reality and come up with a true joker origin, motive, and battle with batman.  That is what burton and hamm did.  Again, look at the quote by that alex ross guy.  Burton knew who the joker was from the comics.  He just made it make sense by shaping it up a little.  Nolan totally changed the type of clay.

[burtongenius]

As far as the penguin goes, that is a very interesting discussion.  Whoever said about burton understanding the penguin was right.  He didn't (again fansite).  The whole business man/ crime boss thing did not make sense.  So I think once burton and waters filtered all the info, they came up with a perfect movie.  Like someone said, the penguin origin has definetely been a little ambiguous over the years.  Batman Returns used it all though in my opinion. He's called the penguin because of the beak nose, the webbed hands, and he's short.  He comes from a upper class family but is abandoned and sent to the sewer- hence separated from the family.  Because he was abandoned by his parents (looks like penguin remember), he ends up with penguins from the zoo.  Motive- kill all the first born of gotham (he was first born).  Basic bad guy scenario.  Then Schreck, the glue between batman, catwoman, and penguin, has Oswald try to become mayor.  Oswald trying to become mayor is like the secret bad guy that noone knows about (60s batman show and sort of like secret business/boss guy).  In the end he tries to kill all of gotham in revenge on humanity for a) not letting him be mayor, b)society treatment of freaks in general.  He tries to use penguins in a beautiful scheme.  And by the way, the umbrella makes perfect sense in a sewer right?  Plus, the circus freak show he was in provided his thugs.  It all follows sequence, at least to me anyhow.

[The Dark Knight]

Its like having a gun without the bullets.  You have the gun (chemical spill) but you can't channel it without previous bad gangster life experience.  

Good point.

As far as saying its okay to have different versions, I think that is confusing and a real copout. Who is the joker if he can have so many fancy schmancy interpetations?  The way to find out the true origin that really makes sense in our world is to use the comic book information and put it through the filter of reason and reality and come up with a true joker origin, motive, and battle with batman.  That is what burton and hamm did.  Again, look at the quote by that alex ross guy.  Burton knew who the joker was from the comics.  He just made it make sense by shaping it up a little.  Nolan totally changed the type of clay.

Confusing and a real copout to have other versions?!

Variety is the spice of life. Nolan did something different yet remained faithful to the core character. There was never going to be any point dishing up exactly the same thing as Nicholson.

You can like other interpretations other than Burton's you know.

[burtongenius]

 First off, I don't think Nolan remained faithful to the core character.  He put pieces of the joker onto a character, like the purple suit, the painted white skin, the painted green hair, but that doesn't make him the joker.  The joker is a guy who gets his face and hair chemically changed and his face messed up.  And he is stylically motivated toward purple clothing.  After that I guess you can have all the variation you want.  And thats not even true because there is only one story that someone comes up with that actually makes sense.  If there is so much variety over the same thing, why should we belive any of them?

[The Dark Knight]

You are merely looking at the origin of his appearance and ruling everything else out.

He does have the trademarks - green hair and so forth, but done differently. Ledger's Joker was new, and it was faithful. It is how The Joker is as a character that defines him. How be behaves.

Getting the exact same thing each time can get tiresome. Variety is a good thing, and it is healthy to explore the character in different ways.

[johnnygobbs]

I don't get this post.  The only comic book interpretation I know of where The Joker is the product of a chemical accident is The Killing Joke, a brilliant graphic novel (possibly even the best Batman graphic novel) but by no means a definitive statement as to how the character should continue being portrayed.

Nolan did a great thing with The Joker by leaving his origins ambiguous.  Like most serial killers there are various explanations as to how they became evil, but the scary thing is we don't truly understand what makes them tick and that's why they remain such a threat.  Nolan used a similar technique to those horror movies in which the monster is purposefully kept in the shadows - our imagination as to what made The Joker is potentially more scary than anything a writer could conceive on screen.

[The Dark Knight]

I don't get this post.  The only comic book interpretation I know of where The Joker is the product of a chemical accident is The Killing Joke, a brilliant graphic novel (possibly even the best Batman graphic novel) but by no means a definitive statement as to how the character should continue being portrayed.

Nolan did a great thing with The Joker by leaving his origins ambiguous.  Like most serial killers there are various explanations as to how they became evil, but the scary thing is we don't truly understand what makes them tick and that's why they remain such a threat.  Nolan used a similar technique to those horror movies in which the monster is purposefully kept in the shadows - our imagination as to what made The Joker is potentially more scary than anything a writer could conceive on screen.

Great post.

[burtongenius]

 In response to JohnnyGobbs, you are right.  It is nice to do that, to keep people wondering.  But there was one path that led him to his current state,  whether the audience ever knows it or not.  We are talking about a realistic movie right?  And in response to the dark knight, variety is good, but according to you its alright to give lex luthor hair.  Its not the color of the skin or hair, its that he got them in a chemical bath along with the smile.  He doesn't choose to go crazy, he goes crazy due to a permanent persona change.  Ledger joker did do crimes probably (we don't know) because of his knife cut.  But like I said before he didn't lose his marbles.  He's just one really mad person out to hurt the world. 

[The Dark Knight]

And in response to the dark knight, variety is good, but according to you its alright to give lex luthor hair.  Its not the color of the skin or hair, its that he got them in a chemical bath along with the smile.  He doesn't choose to go crazy, he goes crazy due to a permanent persona change.  Ledger joker did do crimes probably (we don't know) because of his knife cut.  But like I said before he didn't lose his marbles.  He's just one really mad person out to hurt the world.  

I am of the opinion it just matters the elements are there, not where they come from.

I get your point, but hair does not benefit the Luthor character at all.

Luthor does not have hair in the comics, so I wouldn?t be giving him any. But if he did, I wouldn?t mind where it came from, eg. hair transplant or whatever.

A cut smile is a permanent persona change. He?s scarred for life. Again, he?s just completing that image. Yes, he?s choosing to apply those things himself, but that?s directly a result from his permanent smile that has driven him crazy. Without the cut smile, he wouldn?t be who he is.

Ledger's Joker was a blend of many different types of Jokers into one cohesive character that was different yet of the source.

And if you don?t think Ledger?s Joker lost his marbles, you don?t know the Joker character. Because that?s the character he?s playing.

[thecolorsblend]

In response to colorsblend

In response to colorsblend

In reply to the dark knight.

In response to JohnnyGobbs

There's a "quote" button at the top of everyone's post.