:dubious:
Then–to quote a well-known movie critic–it’s a good thing that no one suggested any such thing. I think probably we all agree on the basics; Terrifel was just suggesting that he would have liked even more of those humorous moments.
Daniel
Right. And some of us were suggesting that this would have, um, *enshallowed *the performance, to coin a word, which you may use only with proper attribution and payment of royalties.
Wishing the Joker had been played by Robin Williams is like insisting that since you love hot fudge, you should ladle it over everything from sushi to sausage. I think (obviously, YMMV) that Ledger’s performance was masterfully varied and balanced. The macabre laughs were there, but not too much so, which would have ruined it.
Oh and as to your :dubious:, that’s not what **Cervaise **was saying at all, to my understanding. He was suggesting that to have played the Joker with such a one-note approach would not have adequately addressed the complexities of a character who is, among other things, a homicidal sociopathic terrorist.
Two things on my second viewing… Is Tiny Lister supposed to be a Villain from the regular Batman universe? I remember back to Begins, where Zsasz (sic?) showed up, but you could easily miss him… Any guesses as to who Lister plays?
And second, the Joker’s very first “joke”, the smoke grenade in William Fitchners mouth… that didnt play very well with either audience I seen it with… most people, although believing Fitch’s head was about to explode, simply thought it was a poison gas that was to be used to kill him. I think, if ever there was a time for a flag with “bang” written on it, it was here. The audience was terrified, parents felt they had just brought there kids into a movie where a shotgun wielding mob accountant got his head grenaded off in the first ten minutes… the “bang” flag would have set the tone of nervous laughter, and probably made more sense, overally.
lissener, I don’t think anyone was calling for Ledger to give a one-note performance. Terrifel was responding to this line:
He wasn’t calling for Robin Williams to play the Joker; as I read him, he was suggesting that he would have preferred the Joker’s wry, mordant humor to stay as it was, only to have been evident more often.
I’m not sure I agree with Terrifel. I never felt during the movie as though the Joker was being too serious, that the mordant humor was insufficient. But I don’t think it’s fair to Terrifel to suggest he’d have preferred Robin Williams in the role or that he wishes the performance had been one-note; that’s not what he was saying at all, I think.
(And you’re probably right about Cervaise. Rhombus, on the other hand, is pretty clear in saying that the Joker isn’t supposed to be funny. When I characterized that as saying that people who found him funny are awful, I went too far.)
Daniel
But that’s what this Batman is about. Parents should be worried about bringing their kids. It played fine at the theater I saw it in.
And I thought it was pretty obvious The Joker blasted Fichter with Joker Venom.
You are correct. Thank you for understanding what I was attempting to communicate.
Really? What makes you think that?
Wait, which did they think–that it was a poison gas or that his head was about to explode? You’ve sort of written it that they believe both were happening.
Also, what was supposed to happen? I figured it was some kind of poison gas that would kill him.
That’s what I thought, too, but I’m not sure why I thought that–maybe it was just vague memories of Burton’s Joker.
Daniel
The Joker… poison gas… why wouldn’t it be Joker Venom? I mean really, isn’t Joker Venom just a fancy phrase for “any poison The Joker may use?”
No, Joker Venom makes the victims laugh hysterically, then die with huge Joker grins on their faces.
I’m not certain, but in the comics I think Joker Venom was supposed to be a lethal version of the toxic chemicals that gave the Joker his clown-like appearance, which is why he himself was immune to the effect.
In Burton’s movie, the Joker got his look from a combination of a toxic chemical bath and facial scarring. Later he stumbled across a CIA chemical weapon that coincidentally caused a death grin that mimicked his own, so he used that.
Nolan’s Joker apparently just has facial scars. There’s no longer any “chemical bath” element to his origin (or indeed any definite origin), and therefore no Joker Venom to mimic it. Presumably if this guy wants to leave a smile on his victim’s face, he cuts it there himself.
I was totally expecting the Commissioner to die from Joker Venom. In the Joker’s first comic appearance, that’s how he killed his victims-- first he announced when their deaths would occur, and then they inexplicably keeled over at the appointed time.
As others pointed out, no. Joker Venom has two very specific effects that didn’t appear in that scene of the movie. First, it gives its victims a rictus-like grin. Second, it kills them. The guy with the smoke grenade in his mouth was still alive at the end of that scene, and he wasn’t smiling. So, pretty clearly not Joker Venom.
They THOUGHT his head would explode.
In fact, it was just a smoke grenade, perfectly harmless, but a good laugh for the Joker.
Then the audience THOUGHT that instead of a smoke grenage, it was a poison gas that was going to kill Fitch.
Then, they didnt know what to THINK.
Typing it now, I dont know what to THINK.
I also am unsure as to why I’m using capitals for THINK and THOUGHT.
First off, loved the movie.
However, I felt like a lot of its psychological effects were tempered by its status as a “comic book” movie. There’s a lot of visceral moments in the film that could have been more graphically stated, but that might have taken it a step further away from summer popcorn flick territory.
I hope that the Director’s Cut version will show some of the more violent acts in the movie in unfiltered detail. Was no one else disappointed when we didn’t get to see the Joker cut open that one guy’s mouth? Why’d he suddenly just drop dead, anyway? Presuming that it was just his cheeks that were cut or even his throat?
Okay. I guess, considering he’s the Joker, he could go either way. He’s psychopathic enough to actually kill someone just for the hell of it, but he seems to enjoy toying with us even more. (I.e., his fake backstories.)
I had no idea you could forget to breathe for almost two and a half hours, and survive.
But once the adrenaline wore off, I was left with one major irritant. (Not Katie Holmes in BB major - but it is gnawing at me)
Why did Jim Gordon need a son?
Everyone who has any history with the Batman franchise knows who Barbara Gordon (his daughter - not sure what it means that Gordon’s wife is named Barbara in this iteration) will be. She had to be in any movie or scene that focussed on Gordon’s family (though she very nearly wasn’t, other than as a brown-haired head pressed against her mother).
So why couldn’t she be his child with the Batman hero worship? The one wordless with awe that her father saved Batman this time (loved that line). The one calling, “Batman, come back!” And why couldn’t she be the most important thing in his life, the person it would kill him to lose? Why did Nolan/Goyer write in a son with (someone correct me if I’m off-base here) no basis in the entire 60 years of Batman? In Nolan’s world, do fathers not love their daughters that much? Only sons?
Batman has always been lacking powerful heroic women - plenty of ass-kickers on the side of Evil, but in the Good column we’ve pretty much just got Barbara. So why isn’t the foundation for her eventual “career” choice being laid here? Does Nolan’s reboot not allow for a Batgirl? Is it a big No Girls Allowed club in the new Gotham? I join with everyone else in this thread who said bringing in He Who Must Not Be Named would be a heinous mistake/stylistically inappropriate/WRONG, but does that mean we aren’t allowed Batgirl either?
Yes, it does. (Also, in current continuity, she’s his niece. Except possibly also his daughter… yes, that means what you think it means.)
It also means there’s someone to kill later.
I think that you’ve answered your own question here. Jim Gordon had to have a son in The Dark Knight explicitly because anyone who knows anything about the franchise knows what eventually becomes of daughter Barbara. Knowing that Barbara Gordon grows up to be Batgirl entails knowing that Barbara Gordon doesn’t get shot dead by Two-Face in an industrial park at age 8. If you want Two-Face to be threatening one of Gordon’s kids, and you want the threat to have meaning for the audience - if you want the audience worrying and wondering are they really going to kill off a kid? - you can’t make the potential victim someone who we all know has to survive.
I mean, was anyone really faked out by Gordon’s own “death?” I wasn’t. Not because I’m brilliant or anything, but simply because they had gone to considerable trouble to point out that James Gordon was not yet Police Commissioner. I didn’t seriously believe they’d kill off Gordon before he became Commissioner Gordon.
So they invented a son, to give that scene with Two-Face a degree of suspense that it wouldn’t have included if Barbara was the intended victim.