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I didn't like Ledger as the joker either. The joker is meant to be downright insane. The kind of insane where he hits you with oversized novelty hammers and squirts you in the face with acid from his lepal flower while cackling like a loony or blows out your spine with a large caliber revolver because you didn't bring him the right style of coffee, but at the same time is equally capable of semi-rational and quite logical thinking. (Remembering of course that he is insane and that rational thinking for him would probably appear quite mad to anyone else)

The reason i didn't enjoy the way Ledger played the joker was becuase he played him as a grim and serious character with a darker kind of insanity that i felt didn't really suit the MO of the joker. This in itself is all very well and good but it's just not how i feel the joker should be portrayed. There was just none of the mirror smashing, gallery defiling, giant barreled shoot-a-multimillion-dollar-batplane-down pistol style shinannigans that one would expect from the joker.

Maybe because the whole DKR trilogy was designed to be a more psychological and grimdark set? HL's Joker was in my opinion, the perfect representation of the Joker. Sure he seems rational, but really, look at him. What are his goals and intentions. To have a good laugh fighting the Batman and kill some people while doing it.

 Snrub wrote:


The reason i didn't enjoy the way Ledger played the joker was becuase he played him as a grim and serious character with a darker kind of insanity that i felt didn't really suit the MO of the joker. This in itself is all very well and good but it's just not how i feel the joker should be portrayed. There was just none of the mirror smashing, gallery defiling, giant barreled shoot-a-multimillion-dollar-batplane-down pistol style shinannigans that one would expect from the joker.

That kind of Joker would have been horrendously out of place in Nolan's Batman universe, though.

No I'm not trolling. I'm aware of the Batman's history as a violent vigilante. And while I enjoy him generally, along with other super-types, I'm not overly fond of the tone of recent entries into the franchise. I'm disenchanted in general with the OTT "gritty realism" of everything nowadays. I enjoyed Avengers because it wasn't an emo-drag marathon.

BTW I saw the Ledger one but thought there were 2 more after that. I can't keep track of all the ones I haven't seen.

 Snrub wrote:
I didn't like Ledger as the joker either. The joker is meant to be downright insane. The kind of insane where he hits you with oversized novelty hammers and squirts you in the face with acid from his lepal flower while cackling like a loony or blows out your spine with a large caliber revolver because you didn't bring him the right style of coffee, but at the same time is equally capable of semi-rational and quite logical thinking. (Remembering of course that he is insane and that rational thinking for him would probably appear quite mad to anyone else)

The reason i didn't enjoy the way Ledger played the joker was becuase he played him as a grim and serious character with a darker kind of insanity that i felt didn't really suit the MO of the joker. This in itself is all very well and good but it's just not how i feel the joker should be portrayed. There was just none of the mirror smashing, gallery defiling, giant barreled shoot-a-multimillion-dollar-batplane-down pistol style shinannigans that one would expect from the joker.

I really really liked the Ledger Joker. Ledger didn't play him as the Joker. Ledger played him as Charles Manson.
I also really liked the Jack Nicholson Joker. He played it like..the Joker.

I was once asked by an ex who I liked better as Joker: Ledger or Nicholson. The answer I gave was that they were both awesome, they just portrayed different angles of the Joker Nicholson went for a more extravagant Joker (the art-ruining scene nailed it for me), while Ledger went for the dark, evil Joker, who just wants to watch the world burn. Heath also did a better job of showing how truly brilliant the Joker actually was, despite the claim to not having a plan. Also, he dressed in a drag-nurse costume. That's also fairly normal of the Joker. In his mind, anyway.

rubiksnoob wrote:That kind of Joker would have been horrendously out of place in Nolan's Batman universe, though.

That's very true. It would have been out of place in the setting.

Frazzled wrote:I really really liked the Ledger Joker. Ledger didn't play him as the Joker. Ledger played him as Charles Manson.
I also really liked the Jack Nicholson Joker. He played it like..the Joker.

If i had known nothing about the DC universe when i had seen Dark Knight then i would have thought Ledger was a standout joker. As it is, i'm probably pretty biased due to having played the Keaton/Nicholson Batman movie ad-nauseum when i was a kid.

timetowaste85 wrote:Also, he dressed in a drag-nurse costume.

That would have to be my favourite scene from the DK.

The Ledger Joker was the best bad guy form any movie, including Hopkins lector in Silence of the Lambs and Bill Murry's Camp Counselor role from Meatballs.

Anyone that says different probably loved camp.

Different Batmen get different Jokers. *shrug*

The Joker has been even more all over the place in his comic book characterizations than the Batman. Grant Morrison explained this to be some kind of 'supersanity' in which the Joker is constantly adapting to a changing environment.

There are almost certainly going to be more Batman movies starring Affleck on the way (barring B vs. S being a box office disaster, which seems impossible). And like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if Affleck ends up directing himself in those. But Ledger's performance was a generational thing, made even more iconic by his death...I don't know how another actor can touch that role again for another decade at least. It's radioactive, even if it's a different kind of Joker for a different kind of Batman (I expect that we'll see a little more of the Dark Knight DETECTIVE in the new films).


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 kronk wrote:
The Ledger Joker was the best bad guy form any movie, including Hopkins lector in Silence of the Lambs and Bill Murry's Camp Counselor role from Meatballs.

Anyone that says different probably loved camp.

There are plenty that do. We've talked about Superman Returns rating like 15 points higher than Man of Steel on Metacritic here before, but note that Superman Returns also ranks 2 points higher than Batman Begins. I don't get it. Not. One. Bit. (to use Ledger's Joker's words) But clearly there are both fans and critics who like lighter fare in their superhero films.

It does need to be said that Nolan's Batman is a fairly extreme version of the character, pretty much stripped down to rage, anguish and violence. The whole trilogy is extremely "post-9/11" and I think I've referred to that Batman as the counter-terrorist rage tank Batman here before. So I do get that some people might want something different...not necessarily campy, but a better representation of the character's detective roots.

I liked Man of Steel a lot. Considering I thought most tentpole films in 2013 were craptacular balls of poo, it was a refreshing difference. Others' mileage may differ but they're cat lovers and first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

 Frazzled wrote:
I liked Man of Steel a lot. Considering I thought most tentpole films in 2013 were craptacular balls of poo, it was a refreshing difference. Others' mileage may differ but they're cat lovers and first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Whoah, I'm a cat lover and I thought Man of Steel was a solid film. Let's not be too hasty with who gets sent up a wall...

 kronk wrote:
The Ledger Joker was the best bad guy form any movie, including Hopkins lector in Silence of the Lambs and Bill Murry's Camp Counselor role from Meatballs.

Anyone that says different probably loved camp.

IMO he is not the best Joker, never mind the best "bad guy" - look at real movie bad guys like Anton Chigurh. Ledgers Joker was one of the few good things in that particular film but he was not awesome or even especially scary - he hardly killed anyone other than other criminals and had a plot shield that would have stopped nukes.

Jack's Joker was insane, dangerous and a real psycho killer - lets face he wiped out a museum full of people just to get a date with Vicky - in contrast the Ledger version just about managed to blow up an empty hospital - wow so scary

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
I liked Man of Steel a lot. Considering I thought most tentpole films in 2013 were craptacular balls of poo, it was a refreshing difference. Others' mileage may differ but they're cat lovers and first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Whoah, I'm a cat lover and I thought Man of Steel was a solid film. Let's not be too hasty with who gets sent up a wall...

Well, while we can slot you in for a later place, unless you swear allegiance to our Wiener Dog overlords or their allies (Cthulu, Iguanas, and otters but come on they're really just wiener dogs in the ocean) its not going to go well. Sorry I don't make the rules.

Best villain? Sorry but Darth Vader and Lord Olivier kicks him right in the babymaker.

I think they're different characterizations of the Joker, and as such it becomes a matter of personal taste.

Now, I personally think the better *performance* of the role the actors were given was unquestionably Ledger's. Ledger absolutely disappears into his character, while you're painfully aware at every step that the Joker is Jack Nicholson. Jack really just kinda plays crazy Jack, which we've seen before without all the purple.

 Snrub wrote:
The joker is meant to be downright insane.

It is ok not to like it, but the idea that there is a singular idea of what the Joker is, or ought to be, ignores the history of the character and the comics. Just as Batman changes, so do his rogues; there is no singular correct version of any Batman villain.

I think people kind of fail to remember that the Joker has been the goofy villain that we've seen in the Batman cartoons, several of the comics, Caesar Romero's Joker, Jack's Joker, Heath's Joker, etc... Let's also not forget that the Joker at one point has killed Robin (Batman Beyond movie), raped Batgirl, and in the New 52 version, the Joker has literally had his face removed, stapled back on, and was/is trying to kill all of Batman's 'family' starting with Alfred and the Commissioner and working his way through the others...

I think I may be able to end the Joker tangent by putting this here...

 Alfndrate wrote:
I think people kind of fail to remember that the Joker has been the goofy villain that we've seen in the Batman cartoons, several of the comics, Caesar Romero's Joker, Jack's Joker, Heath's Joker, etc... Let's also not forget that the Joker at one point has killed Robin (Batman Beyond movie), raped Batgirl, and in the New 52 version, the Joker has literally had his face removed, stapled back on, and was/is trying to kill all of Batman's 'family' starting with Alfred and the Commissioner and working his way through the others...

Joker killed Robin in Under the Red Hood, Alf. In the BB movie he gave Robin a good old brainwashing and pretty much destroyed him. And yeah, what he did to Batgirl was arguably the worst. Joker is pretty much evil incarnate: I love Star Wars, but Vader has nothing on Joker as a villain. Vader was redeemable at the end. There is no redemption for Joker. Vader killed a roomful of children? Joker has done that too, along with the children's families. Ok, sure, Vader nuked a whole planet. I'll give him that. From 10,000 miles away, unable to see the faces of anyone. Joker watches his victims die; while laughing!

I think it was left out of the animated movie, but in the graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns the Joker handed out poison cotton candy to the kids at the Gotham State Fair.

I still think Affleck can be a good Batman, especially if he's doing the world weary thing.