I'm looking at Watchmen the same way. (Haven't reread The Killing Joke in a while--it's very well done, but I confess to preferring Arkham Asylum. Still-and-all, both are wonderful examples of the Joker not spelling out his initials while stealing jewel-encrusted clown masks.[1])
I mean, I'm sure they're going to end up giving us something that is not strictly out of the comic. But the pictures are beautiful and evocative enough that I'm hopeful, and if we end up with something that gets the comic wrong[2], a small piece of my heart will crack.
Because it's looking right, so far. The stage is set. The opening music is apropos. And *please please please* let the mood not break when the actors open their mouths... --- [1] Damn you, Dr. Frederic Wertham. *turns head, spits* [2] Which is totally different from not being the same thing as the comic.
Squee is happy, enthused, and possibly occasionally sexy. (Well, you know, as long as we are not discussing the JtHM character.) Squee is Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow, or possibly just the Scarecrow.
This is the Joker.
I want a serious helping of plausible terror--believably extracted from the other characters, if not necessarily effective enough to disturb everyone in the theater--and at least the finest slice of something actually disturbing to me. Because this is him, my favourite of the small handful of characters I would actually be sorry to see go if the DC Universe vanished tomorrow.
And yeah, it's a movie, and yeah, it's a comic-book movie, and I understand there are limits on how far they can go.
But I want to see the compassion of a habromaniacal shark. Even if it's only sketched out behind the curtain, I want to see terror, and pain, and the utter dehumanization when an empty soul is in charge of the situation. Forget fear in a handful of dust; I want to see black and shrieking evil in a clown's painted grin.
Because that's the Joker.
(...yeah. I geek weirdly when I geek on villains.)
Too bad it's the Joker as he doesn't actually appear in the comics. It's a rewrite that makes the character not suck, I admit, but it has very little to do with the Joker who is a Batman villain.
I am under the distinct impression that "Joker as he appears in the comics" is not a phrase that means much, since he's been reinvented just as often as his archnemisisisis Batman has, over the years.
Really, anything remotely associated with the Batman universe cannot be considered to have a single, "real" canon interpretation anymore. The story's been redone a gazillion times, in every medium.
(At any rate, I wasn't necessarily saying that "this is how Joker should be, canonically", I was more agreeing with torrain that "this is how Joker should be, because that would be awesome".)
Pretty much. (That said, the Joker as he should be to provide maximum awesome does show up in the comics a few times--Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth[1] and (to a slightly lesser degree) The Killing Joke that mhoye mentioned spring to mind, and there are bits of it in Dark Knight Returns--so I have no problem saying that this is him as he appears in the comics. Just, you know, the best bits of him, with the crud filtered out.)
I think the Joker is the only comic-book villain I've ever seen to get an anthology of prose stories dedicated to him alone. A couple are uninspired--the Joker as a child ones really didn't grab me--but F. Paul Wilson's leaves me grinning every time, and Sheri S. Tepper's is a neat and quiet little package.
...yeah, I am a horror fangirl. Anyway. --- [1] Which has got to be my favourite subtitle of all time.
And I couldn't even tell it was Heath till I IMDB'd it, whence the squee turned double. Because the Joker is hardcore awesome with awesome sauce. I hope pretty boy can do the role justice. Still. Squee.
Considering the sort of Tim Burton-Does-Campy aura over the whole movie, he was PERFECT. Hamming it up in a totally creepy sort of way.
Mark Hammil + WB animators do a very good one too, but their take is missing the actual unpredictably-murderous angle that makes the Joker frightening. Stupid kids TV.
You know what's great? He's just sitting there. And yet his posture conveys that this is a guy who is some serious broken. And the expression on his face conveys that someone is gonna pay BIG. And his outfit conveys both that he's not quite on the same wavelength as the rest of consensual reality that he'd carefully prepared for a night on the town and gone out with high expectations and something terrible happened to him instead, which makes you feel compassion for him. All this stuff and all it is, is a photo of a guy sitting on a bench in a jail cell.
That is some good acting and directing and design in a very tight package.
In the opening minutes of the film, before the credits, even, it's revealed that he and his minions dress as clowns partly to keep from being identified, partly because it's a stylistic choice of consistent disguises.
And that's okay, really.
I'm wondering how they're going to write the "the mask is permanent now" part. I hope it's not as incredibly stupid as their "microwave machine" from Batman Begins.
Batman Begins was good (the microwave machine was damn stupid though, I agree). I was sad at what they did to Ra's al Ghul though. The whole thing about his magic vs Batman's belief that everything can be explained through science is brilliant and they just left it out of his character (as far as I can tell). He better not actually have died at the end of that movie.
(I am totally not a fan of the Batmobile as a concept, really. I liked what Matt Wagner did in Monster Men: the Batmobile as a fleet of nondescript-looking grey sedans - which are tricked out to the max, with bulletproof metal and glass, a screaming engine, and emergency supplies in the trunk. That made sense.)
Because the Batmobile, like the Batarang and the Bat-flyer and the Bat-utility-belt and Bat-Man himself, SUCK ASS.
Batman is crap. Batman has always been crap. It's only when you eliminate everything that makes Batman into Batman, and take the violent, scarred antihero, that Batman becomes a character even remotely worth looking at.
Ditto The Joker.
The Joker is a waste of celluloid and processor power. It's only be rewriting him completely, and making him into a monster instead of a literal joke, that you can make a character worth the time it takes to look at him.
This is mostly because I don't really read comics that much. I like the idea rather than the actual character. And yeah, most of what makes him Batman is disgusting and silly.
People have done some good things with him when they focused on the person rather than the gimmicks. The death of Robin was good. I like it when comics kill someone and they stay dead.
There's plenty to work with, it's just that most people don't.
You know--way back in pre-Code days--he wasn't that bad. A third-rate rip-off of the Spirit[1], okay, but "non-powered masked hero using his brain to catch vicious murderers" is *not* an inherently bad concept, dammit. And yeah, the writing was intended for kids, and the art got belted out (and still wasn't bad; a little crude, maybe, but the composition's good and the flow's decent--I mean, this *is* Bob Kane). Maybe not great, but not crap.
Now, WRT the Joker:
He started as a monster.
He was a vicious murdering extortionist and thief, whose modus operandi involved killing people who didn't pay him (or who he was robbing, or who he thought it would be fun to kill), occasionally with a horrible chemical concoction that caused their face muscles to spasm into a terrible grin. Before they cleaned him up into a glitzy punny clown.
There is camp in Batman's history. There is a lot of crap, and a lot of jokes. But it did not start that way, dammit, and the Joker as callous monster and Batman as devoted detective[2] exist all the way back to the 1939 comics (or 1940, for the Joker).
They've changed (added to?) Batman, to make him darker and more broken and a better foil for the Joker.
For the Joker? Really, they're just going back to what he started as. --- [1] Or the Lone Ranger, or the Scarlet Pimpernel, or Zorro, or whoever the hell you want to go with. [2] Yes, I know he's turned into a driven detective. That's okay. That they're currently writing for an audience who goes "Uhm, he dresses as a bat...?" and requires the response "Yeah, this is *really* important to him" does not strike me as a change, more an expansion.
Also, for me, it very much evoked Rorschach sitting in prison, with Big Figure's goons waiting behind him. "I'm not locked up in here with you. You're all locked up in here with me."
Hmm, I wonder if the actor to our left is one I've seen before in other shows. If so, it would be interesting to see him as a villain, he normally plays the ironic observer type.
Oh, you wanted a comment on the Joker. Pretty good. They did a nice job on Batman's second-greatest villain.
Harvey Dent, A.K.A. Two-Face. A man who once prosecuted villains with fervor and intensity. A man who was friends with Bruce Wayne. A man who is highly intelligent. The Joker is no less gimmick-based than Batman, Two-Face actually has a brain and uses it, overcoming his decision-making handicap.
(Usual caveat: In the hands of a decent writer, of course.)
Hmm, try Gotham Central: Half a Life (trade collection) for a sample.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 02:24 pm (UTC)I dropped by to take a quick look, and nearly got startled into... not a shriek, certainly. But something louder than a squeak.
This movie, oh please, this movie *must* be awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:40 pm (UTC)I mean, I'm sure they're going to end up giving us something that is not strictly out of the comic. But the pictures are beautiful and evocative enough that I'm hopeful, and if we end up with something that gets the comic wrong[2], a small piece of my heart will crack.
Because it's looking right, so far. The stage is set. The opening music is apropos. And *please please please* let the mood not break when the actors open their mouths...
---
[1] Damn you, Dr. Frederic Wertham. *turns head, spits*
[2] Which is totally different from not being the same thing as the comic.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 04:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:50 pm (UTC)Squee is happy, enthused, and possibly occasionally sexy. (Well, you know, as long as we are not discussing the JtHM character.) Squee is Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow, or possibly just the Scarecrow.
This is the Joker.
I want a serious helping of plausible terror--believably extracted from the other characters, if not necessarily effective enough to disturb everyone in the theater--and at least the finest slice of something actually disturbing to me. Because this is him, my favourite of the small handful of characters I would actually be sorry to see go if the DC Universe vanished tomorrow.
And yeah, it's a movie, and yeah, it's a comic-book movie, and I understand there are limits on how far they can go.
But I want to see the compassion of a habromaniacal shark. Even if it's only sketched out behind the curtain, I want to see terror, and pain, and the utter dehumanization when an empty soul is in charge of the situation. Forget fear in a handful of dust; I want to see black and shrieking evil in a clown's painted grin.
Because that's the Joker.
(...yeah. I geek weirdly when I geek on villains.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 04:40 pm (UTC)Which is why I was encouraged when I listened to the teaser trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWw0ov-cAUg) for the movie.
Certainly sounds like they have the right idea.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 07:59 pm (UTC)Really, anything remotely associated with the Batman universe cannot be considered to have a single, "real" canon interpretation anymore. The story's been redone a gazillion times, in every medium.
(At any rate, I wasn't necessarily saying that "this is how Joker should be, canonically", I was more agreeing with
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 09:11 pm (UTC)I think the Joker is the only comic-book villain I've ever seen to get an anthology of prose stories dedicated to him alone. A couple are uninspired--the Joker as a child ones really didn't grab me--but F. Paul Wilson's leaves me grinning every time, and Sheri S. Tepper's is a neat and quiet little package.
...yeah, I am a horror fangirl. Anyway.
---
[1] Which has got to be my favourite subtitle of all time.
p
Date: 2007-12-13 04:48 pm (UTC)Cillian Murphy is certainly hot too though.
And I couldn't even tell it was Heath till I IMDB'd it, whence the squee turned double. Because the Joker is hardcore awesome with awesome sauce. I hope pretty boy can do the role justice. Still. Squee.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 05:09 pm (UTC)But he won't say what it was.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 09:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 04:53 am (UTC)That's enough to scare any Hollywood person.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 02:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 02:57 pm (UTC)Considering the sort of Tim Burton-Does-Campy aura over the whole movie, he was PERFECT. Hamming it up in a totally creepy sort of way.
Mark Hammil + WB animators do a very good one too, but their take is missing the actual unpredictably-murderous angle that makes the Joker frightening. Stupid kids TV.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 05:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 03:29 pm (UTC)Excellent....
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 04:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 05:41 pm (UTC)Batman Begins was damn good, so hopefully this will be, too.
I love the Mask of the Phantasm Joker, he's one of the best out there, and Mark Hamill does a great job with the voice, he's almost unrecognizable.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 08:20 pm (UTC)That is some good acting and directing and design in a very tight package.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 08:28 pm (UTC)And that's okay, really.
I'm wondering how they're going to write the "the mask is permanent now" part. I hope it's not as incredibly stupid as their "microwave machine" from Batman Begins.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 12:02 am (UTC)And Batman better get a real Batmobile.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:09 am (UTC)(I am totally not a fan of the Batmobile as a concept, really. I liked what Matt Wagner did in Monster Men: the Batmobile as a fleet of nondescript-looking grey sedans - which are tricked out to the max, with bulletproof metal and glass, a screaming engine, and emergency supplies in the trunk. That made sense.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:34 am (UTC)They'd have to be oldschool-looking cars tho, I hate modern cars.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:45 am (UTC)Because the Batmobile, like the Batarang and the Bat-flyer and the Bat-utility-belt and Bat-Man himself, SUCK ASS.
Batman is crap. Batman has always been crap. It's only when you eliminate everything that makes Batman into Batman, and take the violent, scarred antihero, that Batman becomes a character even remotely worth looking at.
Ditto The Joker.
The Joker is a waste of celluloid and processor power. It's only be rewriting him completely, and making him into a monster instead of a literal joke, that you can make a character worth the time it takes to look at him.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:52 am (UTC)This is mostly because I don't really read comics that much. I like the idea rather than the actual character. And yeah, most of what makes him Batman is disgusting and silly.
People have done some good things with him when they focused on the person rather than the gimmicks. The death of Robin was good. I like it when comics kill someone and they stay dead.
There's plenty to work with, it's just that most people don't.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 03:08 pm (UTC)You know--way back in pre-Code days--he wasn't that bad. A third-rate rip-off of the Spirit[1], okay, but "non-powered masked hero using his brain to catch vicious murderers" is *not* an inherently bad concept, dammit. And yeah, the writing was intended for kids, and the art got belted out (and still wasn't bad; a little crude, maybe, but the composition's good and the flow's decent--I mean, this *is* Bob Kane). Maybe not great, but not crap.
Now, WRT the Joker:
He started as a monster.
He was a vicious murdering extortionist and thief, whose modus operandi involved killing people who didn't pay him (or who he was robbing, or who he thought it would be fun to kill), occasionally with a horrible chemical concoction that caused their face muscles to spasm into a terrible grin. Before they cleaned him up into a glitzy punny clown.
There is camp in Batman's history. There is a lot of crap, and a lot of jokes. But it did not start that way, dammit, and the Joker as callous monster and Batman as devoted detective[2] exist all the way back to the 1939 comics (or 1940, for the Joker).
They've changed (added to?) Batman, to make him darker and more broken and a better foil for the Joker.
For the Joker? Really, they're just going back to what he started as.
---
[1] Or the Lone Ranger, or the Scarlet Pimpernel, or Zorro, or whoever the hell you want to go with.
[2] Yes, I know he's turned into a driven detective. That's okay. That they're currently writing for an audience who goes "Uhm, he dresses as a bat...?" and requires the response "Yeah, this is *really* important to him" does not strike me as a change, more an expansion.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 09:13 pm (UTC)Also, for me, it very much evoked Rorschach sitting in prison, with Big Figure's goons waiting behind him. "I'm not locked up in here with you. You're all locked up in here with me."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 09:58 pm (UTC)That's a very neat icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 09:11 pm (UTC)*sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 08:59 pm (UTC)Oh, you wanted a comment on the Joker. Pretty good. They did a nice job on Batman's second-greatest villain.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 09:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 10:11 pm (UTC)Harvey Dent, A.K.A. Two-Face. A man who once prosecuted villains with fervor and intensity. A man who was friends with Bruce Wayne. A man who is highly intelligent. The Joker is no less gimmick-based than Batman, Two-Face actually has a brain and uses it, overcoming his decision-making handicap.
(Usual caveat: In the hands of a decent writer, of course.)
Hmm, try Gotham Central: Half a Life (trade collection) for a sample.