A lot of head bashing as far as 'how the Joker is supposed to be' is put to rest by a few differences. As a kid I grew up used to the happy go lucky version of the character, who would combat you with acid flowers and a giant wooden mallet that flew out of a pen...The Joker never made sense, he was a villain purely for being a villain.
Evil for the sake of being Evil is boring. And that's what every sort of Saturday day morning cartoon villain is, they're a bad guy because they want to be. What will they do when they have all those riches? What will they gain once they've dominated the world? These questions are never answered...and for a good reason. If they were, that would be the end of it. I love these Batman movies because the villains have a point. Yes, mobsters and thugs still exist but the main character bad guys have more to them. In the last film we had a group of people dedicated to wiping any society off the face of the earth if it happened to become corrupt. In their minds they were the good guys, and that's what a real villain is...someone who see their cause not as 'evil' or as 'greedy' but rather as the cure. Its in that difference I feel that Batman Begins looks like a miserable failure in comparison to The Dark Knight.
The Joker might not of laughed a lot for real, but you felt his humor. You felt his excitement and glee when Batman slammed his face into a desk, when he was dangling at the edge of the building, every punch thrown at him the Joker loved. What he was out to win wasn't fame or glory, he was out there to drag everyone down to his level. To prove that no one in Gotham was a symbol of hope, that they were all humans and humans are just as terrible as one another. Perhaps Bruce Wayne is the exception to the rule, but at what cost does he maintain being Batman? He can have no real friends (aside Alfred), no family, barely any loved ones and even those happiest moments of his life are often time tainted with sorrow. He doesn't live as a human, but rather pours every aspect of his life (and business) into maintaining an ideal so that the ordinary people CAN live ordinary and safe lives. Its the absence of self sacrifice that makes the Jokers punch lines, the fact that he actively kills his own men as well as sets civilians on one another. In that sense I felt his laughter throughout the entire film. No amount of 'hahaha' could ever make up for the loss of that sort of anarchy.
Evil for the sake of being Evil is boring. And that's what every sort of Saturday day morning cartoon villain is, they're a bad guy because they want to be. What will they do when they have all those riches? What will they gain once they've dominated the world? These questions are never answered...and for a good reason. If they were, that would be the end of it. I love these Batman movies because the villains have a point. Yes, mobsters and thugs still exist but the main character bad guys have more to them. In the last film we had a group of people dedicated to wiping any society off the face of the earth if it happened to become corrupt. In their minds they were the good guys, and that's what a real villain is...someone who see their cause not as 'evil' or as 'greedy' but rather as the cure. Its in that difference I feel that Batman Begins looks like a miserable failure in comparison to The Dark Knight.
The Joker might not of laughed a lot for real, but you felt his humor. You felt his excitement and glee when Batman slammed his face into a desk, when he was dangling at the edge of the building, every punch thrown at him the Joker loved. What he was out to win wasn't fame or glory, he was out there to drag everyone down to his level. To prove that no one in Gotham was a symbol of hope, that they were all humans and humans are just as terrible as one another. Perhaps Bruce Wayne is the exception to the rule, but at what cost does he maintain being Batman? He can have no real friends (aside Alfred), no family, barely any loved ones and even those happiest moments of his life are often time tainted with sorrow. He doesn't live as a human, but rather pours every aspect of his life (and business) into maintaining an ideal so that the ordinary people CAN live ordinary and safe lives. Its the absence of self sacrifice that makes the Jokers punch lines, the fact that he actively kills his own men as well as sets civilians on one another. In that sense I felt his laughter throughout the entire film. No amount of 'hahaha' could ever make up for the loss of that sort of anarchy.
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