DC's Joker Movie Described As A "Cinematic Achievement On A High Level"

I really like the tone from the trailer and hope this is great. That said, the theme so far seems to be a formerly gentle and somewhat vulnerable person (with a serious mother attachment) is abused by the world, cracks, and uses violence for revenge and to claim some power. I hope there is more to it than that: A unique twist or a deeper dive into the psychology.

Still, impossible to tell if it will be good or not from a short trailer with so many cuts.

They said the same thing about the Suicide Squad..

I might be wrong....but I have a feeling they're going with "The Killing Joke" storyline with this movie. It ticks off a few boxes, but there are definitely a few things in the trailer that turn my stomach. Phoenix is a great actor, but this one is too easy to mess up.

Aquaman was actually enjoyable for me....so DC isn't all that bad. But this one.........?

The audiance will be the judge of that, thank you very much.

I find it disappointing and frustrating that people have already made up their mind on a movie before they have seen it or it has even come out.

I am cautiously optimistic about this movie. I love Joaquin Phoenix and the direction they seem to be taking the movie in seems interesting. I'm not too sure on the director though. I was never a big fan of the Hangover movies but I'm hoping he pulls off a good one here. I guess we will just have to wait UNTIL IT COMES OUT to see.

This movie is going to be amazing. Can't wait to see. Very excited to see an original take on the Joker and a new story.

It's DC. It's going to be cringy at best, and unbearably boring at worst.

Reading this, it comes across as incredibly pretentious and looking down on the very thing it is.

I believe that Joaquin Phoenix's terrific acting will make this film fantastic

Don't respect the source material by ignoring it completely, so I'm going to ignore your movie and hope it flops and will never watch any of your movies again.

I don't understand any of the criticism people are making here about the decision not to follow source material. It's not even a real criticism - it's superficial and low hanging fruit analysis that has nothing to say about the quality of a film.

Different comic book authors often retcon the backstories of beloved characters to fit their own narrative and purpose, or construct entirely different storylines altogether. Somehow there is no problem when graphic novelist do this, but filmmakers and screenwriters can't? Dumb. How many versions of batman and spiderman are there, and different alternative narratives that break continuity of their original source? That's one of the strengths of the genre that has given these characters the endurance and legacy to have remained interesting for generations - these films are simply adding to the diversity of that storytelling.

Joker, like all other comic book figures, is already familiar to the audience. This is a filmaker's chance to add to the multiple narratives there already exists for this character. This is most likely a character-study film, so why wouldn't Joker present a perfect subject to fill out an interesting backstory for his motivations?

This also presents a perfect chance to explore a tragedy. We all know what Joker eventually becomes and a hallmark of great tragedies is that the audience has foreknowledge of what's to come. The interest arises as those tragic elements push the character to that final end. I imagine that is how the film will probably play out - and I'm pretty excited for it.

Don't go ahead and conflate silly preferences for a film with genuine criticism. It's sad people is unable to differentiate between the two.

Really ... the source material for Joker in Batman is all over the place already and it was set-up so different versions could be told at anytime (so no big deal in another one being told for mine).

As The Joker said in Killing Joke:

"I mean what is it with you? What made you what you are? Girlfriend killed by the mob, maybe? Brother carved up by some mugger? Something like that I bet...something like that...something like that...happened to me, you know? I'm...I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes, I remember it one way, sometimes another...if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Haha!"

So going from that point, this film can be viewed as one of those multiple choice origins for Joker, not definitive in any way shape or form just one of the many variations on how it may have happened.

Probably the only part that a hat could be hung on (so to speak) with Joker's origin is also something he said in Killing Joke: "My point is...my point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot! All it takes is one bad day. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

Really as long as there is that essence of just one bad day causing the person who is to become Joker to become that, then this film as one of the multiple choice scenarios of how Joker came to be is fine (as that is the only consistent thing in any Joker story).

Even the Joker’s origins where he was impersonating Red Hood and fell into a vat of chemicals when confronted by Batman is not a concrete one at all first happening in the 1989 Batman film and then in 1992's Batman: The Animated Series. It wasn't until 2013 in Batman: Zero Year that it was actually Batman knocking Joker into the vat of chemicals and trying to save him with Joker refusing that created him.

The very first mention of anything to do with chemicals was in 1952's The Man Behind The Red Hood (11 years after he first appeared in 1940) which had the change of his skin being chalk white, his hair green, and his lips red happening completely by accident and not because of Batman (similarly in The Killing Joke 1988 it was an accident). In the Dark Knight Joker tells two different versions, one to Gambo and one to Rachel Dawes and some say a hint is dropped to Harvey Dent that he was disfigured as a Soldier left for dead when he says: "No one panics when a truck full of soldiers is blown up, because it's all part of the plan," which they say could explain his proficiency with weapons and explosives (jury's out on that for me).

On top of that it wasn't Joker as Jack Napier who murdered Thomas and Martha Wayne until the 1989 Tim Burton film (50 years after the comic creation), prior to that it was a guy called Jack Chill who had nothing to do with Joker at all. There was also no Harley Quinn until she was brought into Batman The Animated Series as a love interst that he \never had before, plus the idea of Joker having henchman really only came about in the 1960's with the TV Series (first Joker in 1940 was a blood thirsty murderous psychopath).

Nothing is set in stone what so ever and as above Joker remembers the past differently, deliberately inventing certain origin stories based on whom he’s talking to so he can better manipulate them (and then you have alternate timelines to factor in like Elseworlds and etc., some 54 Comic Multiverses at last count).

In the end though there have been so many variations on The Batman story in the comics over the 80 years it has been around that a version of Joker done in a different way isn't that big of a deal (if you look at the whole and not since 1988). Take the Flashpoint series of Comics, where instead of Thomas and Martha Wayne being killed Bruce was and Thomas becomes Batman, while Martha was so traumatised by the event she cut her face into a garish grin, went insane and became Flashpoints Joker.

tl;dr: Ah well.

How can a movie that has nothing to do with the Comic book be a Cinematic Achievement On A High Level? This alone is a Cinematic failure in a gigantic bigger scale. Nothing not even using bits and peace's from it's original material is just awful. A complete made up movie using the name of a legendary character just to gain views at the movie theater. They definitely not getting my money ill watch it when is free online.