@cappy: Definitely helps in some cases, for instance it made Gotham much more enjoyable knowing different aspects, as they pretty much set-up another Multiverse by taking bits and pieces and mixing it up in a big cauldron so to speak (liked there many Jokers to come take as well). I'm finding the same with them doing Pennyworth on Epix as well, 3 episodes in I'm seeing connections to Michael Caine's Alfred as well as Sean Pertwee's, certainly the ex Naval SAS theme fits in with scenes in The Dark Knight Rises and Alfred with Bruce. Pennyworth is a much more brutal and bloody take on it than has ever been before and there are even f-bombs and etc., thrown around, beautifully shot as well in a as Rolling Stone described it: "cracked-mirror vision of Swinging Sixties London."
@olddadgamer: Yep that's the difficulty in doing something like this, it may have been before even if like I said in another post the original idea came about from let's say Joker before.
Killing Joke has Joker musing that one bad day made him who he was, which could be a good way to tell this story as long as it doesn't turn out like say Michael Douglas in Falling Down who ended up like he was because of one bad day.
Well more so one bad day coming from the 1869 Victor Hugo Book and then 1928 Silent Film The Man Who Laughs that Joker was based on, which in itself was given acknowledgement with the 2005 comic Batman: The Man Who Laughs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Man_Who_Laughs
@cappy: Yep people can have their own opinion, only thing I try and point out is that lore they are talking about is not necessarily the one that was always there, like how Harley Quinn only came about because of Batman The Animated series, which in turn changed Joker's story. Originally Joker wasn't the one who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne either but in Tim Burton's film he was, while in Nolan's he wasn't and his past was not even known, as in Batman didn't cause him to look like he did (just like in the comics in the 50's), his origin in that film was kept a mystery.
Same as originally Batman became Batman when a Bat flew through his window not because he was scared of them in the cave, even in that comic period Bruce learnt that his Dad wore a Bat-Man Costume at a ball and stopped some thugs while wearing it.
This has all that in it: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Bruce-Wayne-choose-to-become-a-Batman-rather-than-a-different-kind-of-animal
So yep have an opinion on what lore is best liked by the person making the post, while at the same time understanding it is not the only lore and others may like a different version. Or in my case I like it when they change things up and like a lot of different versions of that lore. It's like just because I know of Alfred as a pudgy Sherlock Holmes type doesn't mean I begrudge the roustabout ex SAS Michael Caine or Sean Pertwee versions (or Epix Pennyworth).
I'd actually like to see a version of Batman told from the Villains side, where you have them going about their criminal activities and this damn crazy guy dressed as a Bat keeps stopping them and each have their own versions of where he came from (or something).
@bloodstone: Yep and really the only constant that is needed for someone becoming Joker is the lines that went with that: "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."
For the masses though guess they'd have to tread carefully on that as that is really what the 1993 Michael Douglas film Falling Down is about ... just one bad day (even though the Joker reference is 5 years earlier). As in how "I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and I'm all out of bubblegum," is remembered by many as a Duke Nukem 3D thing but actually was said first 8 years earlier in the film They Live by Roddy Piper, sometimes things work ass backwards.
@bloodstone: If they really really feel like they have to do that then a simple black screen at the end with the words "Well that's one way of remembering it," coming up and perhaps a Joker laugh would be enough.
@cappy: Yeah and I'm kind of one those who doesn't need the over explaining, I see it as kind of pandering to those who don't know enough about the DC Multiverse to put them at ease. Anyone who has a slight grasp of how these stories have played out over the past 80 years shouldn't really need an explanation (even though I'm doing that now and below lol). Yes it may be different to some of the lore however that is just the way the stories are and always have been, plus like I said below Warner DC have said Joker is intended to launch DC Dark/Black, a series of DC-based films separate from the DC Extended Universe.
So basically an Elseworlds series of Films: https://screenrant.com/dc-dceu-joker-movie-dark-black/
That really is all the explanation that is needed, those who want pure DCEU get that and others get this, if for example the people who look at Batman The Animated Series or the 89/90's movies as the be all and end all don't like it then that is on them really. As those pieces are just yet another way of telling the story that themselves reinvented some of the lore. Suicide Squad should have been the beginning of this DC Dark/Black Series really, but nope they had to chicken out and edit it horribly because Batman v Superman failed and they tried to re-edit it to be more like MCU Guardians Of The Galaxy wacky.
On that: https://ap2hyc.com/2017/07/editing-suicide-squad-true-failure/
@teaguru12: Then there is the campy Cesar Romero one from the 1960's TV series, which was more Trickster than Joker (but hey standards and practices caused most of that).
@angrycreep: Not really as it is a DC/Warner film that is going to act like the Elseworld Comics do in relation to the other Comics but in film version, as in Joker is intended to launch DC Dark/Black, a series of DC-based films separate from the DC Extended Universe (DCEU).
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.
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