Film Theory: Can the Joker Save DC Films? (Suicide Squad Pt. 2)

The last time in Film Theory and here it is. The three Jokers fit perfectly into the "three Jokers model." But then comes the question Now that Jared Leto plays the Joker in Suicide Squad, is he a new character? Or what Joker line would he continue? MOBIUS CHAIR! Tell me! Who is Jared Leto's Joker today? The exciting conclusion! (INTRODUCTION MUSIC) Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory With an episode that will spend more time analyzing the Joker in Suicide Squad than the time he was on screen in the

film

. Seriously, it was like, "Harley, I'm coming to you in a helicopter." *sshhh-BOOM "Not yet...see you in the next movie.

But don't be fooled by how little screen time he gets. Anyway, it's probably the most important part of the movie, much more important than the hula-dancing sorceress because This connection to the Three Jokers Theory leaves the door WIDE open for some BIG revelations about the DC Cinematic Universe and where it's headed when we last took a look at the Three Jokers Theory, The fact that the three live-action versions of The Joker in the movies corresponds perfectly to the big reveal in the DC comics that there were three different Jokers running amok: Jack Nicholson, the gang leader Joker, the killer in mass César Romero, the Joker of the Silver Age of comics;

Ledger Joker of the modern era comics If you haven't seen the last episode, click on this Batsignal and make your way to that video, the fourth and final Joker. live action: Jared Leto from Suicide Squad. How does it fit into all this? Well, it turns out that Jared Leto isn't a crazy new Joker: he's just a new version of an old character we've seen before. So the question is...Which Joker is he? Does he want to be... Joker number 1? Wild card number 2? Or Joker number 3? Jared Leto... The Joker that best suits you is... Golden Age The Joker, Jack Nicholson He is a gangster with a penchant for nervous purple velvet who is always smiling He loves long walks on the beach and dancing with the devil on the pale skin of the moon.

But why? Well, look at the evidence. First, they both love violence. Nicholson the Joker and Jared Leto are killers who LIKE to kill. We see it again and again in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman; Jack Nicholsen there, jubilant, burning people with electric bells, dancing but shooting his former associates, stabbing political figures in the street with a pen while Bruce Wayne wanders around the crime scene like an idiot. He now looks at Suicide Squad, where the

joker

often holds a machine gun and gleefully shoots everywhere. Throughout the

film

, we also see him repeatedly playing mind games with other criminals before killing them or letting them kill them.

This means that we can firmly rule out César Romero Joker because he was from the silver age, where violence and mutilations were everything. but whitewashed from the comics. He was just the weird, CRAZY prankster who used crazy props to rob banks. Silver Age comic book writers specifically wanted the Joker to be more creative and resourceful with his weapons, never resorting to traditional firearms and knives. And now, watching Suicide Squad's iconic knife-fixing scene not only reveals the Joker's OCD tendencies and presents the world with the verbal equivalent of slow claps: HAHA, HAHA, HAHA. Seriously, that laugh is a slow applause, but it also reveals that Leto's Joker doesn't show the same wit with his arsenal. -Guns, knives-- --more guns, more knives-- Cesar is out!

Look, you guys were afraid I was going to ruin this video with the thumbnail from last time. I notice things like that. but what about Heath Ledger's Bronze Age Joker? Well, just think about the dark knight. Ledger's Joker is a loner, crazy, out of control, answerable to no one. He appears and disappears randomly, surprisingly, and often goes against the bands that hired him. This doesn't sit well with Jared Leto's Joker; I mean, seriously, Suicide Squad's Joker is like Kanye West in Gotham, a social butterfly who traded his closed-back sunglasses for a stunning mouth. I mean, that guy hangs out in clubs with his circle of friends.

Honestly, he has a girlfriend who, it's worth mentioning, we see him risk her life several times to save her. He's surrounded by henchmen who act less like sidekicks and more like Bronies! Or, I guess, like brothers, really. It's the first time we see the Joker with a circle of friends, isn't it? Jack Nicholson's Joker matches Jared Leto when it comes to this small group of his. Like Leto, Jack is a crime boss with an army of disposable henchmen at his... um... disposal. In fact, our two gang leaders are the rulers of organized crime in Gotham. They mobilize great efforts to do things like attack art museums or break into high-security prisons.

And the important thing about all this is that these activities literally have nothing to do with Batman. In fact, Batman's only role is to get in the way of everything. For Heath Ledger's Joker, his goals always focused solely on Batman. He goes back to what we talked about in the last episode: the Bronze Age Joker is totally dependent on Batman: the Yin to the Yang of him; the sunny one to share; The third couple should be fun and won't occur to me now. But not the Golden Age Jokers! His crimes and plans planned by Batman are only an obstacle to completing them.

There you have it: Jared Leto's Joker is a reimagining of the Joker from the OG Golden Age comics, a smiling Jack Nicholson asks the mobster. The Suicide Squad director has gently confirmed that he went into the character's Golden Age origins when deciding how the Joker would fit into this new cinematic world. "And?" I hear you say. "Why did you have to make me wait for a cliffhanger just for this? " Great question, Strawman commenter, your patience will pay off, because knowing how Leto fits into the three Jokers

theory

has some wild implications for the DCU. You see, one of the biggest differences between the DC comic universe and Marvel's is their emphasis on parallel worlds.

The concept allowed the writers the creative freedom to explore alternative versions of the characters and their stories without contradicting the established continuity of the main universe. The modern version of this dates back to 1961, when The Flash writers tried to find a way for Golden Age versions of characters to appear in stories alongside their Silver Age counterparts. Thus began a story titled "Flash of Two Worlds", in which Barry Allen, the modern Flash, goes to another Earth, accidentally vibrating at the right speed to show himself on another planet, where he meets Jay Garrick, that parallel version of the Land. of Flash.

FL: LI, I didn't listen for too long. They created parallel Earths to try to explain the overly complicated stories. Because using physical cosmology hypotheses will always simplify things, right? Yeah, who's with me? Don't leave me hanging; High five right now. Please. PLEASE don't leave me hanging. I have a perpetual fear of being left hanging. PLEASE give your screen a high five right now. *Oh, thank you. Still, the number and canonicity of these alternate universes have been buried over the years due to DC's political abuse or abandonment of the concept at various points in its history with the number of Earth's will between fifty and two to infinity, and more.

Only Earth is famous for being inhabited by heroes of the Silver Age. Earth Two's claim to fame is being the universe where Quebec is a nation independent of Canada. Oh, and it's also home to the Golden Age version of these characters. And that would leave Earth Three as the home of the Bronze Age characters, right? HA! If I want to. It would have made this episode much easier to write. No, Three Earth is the Earth with Backward History, a world where Christopher Columbus discovered Europe instead of America and where morality is reversed, showing evil versions of all your favorite heroes.

And no, I'm not making any of this up, it's basically DC's equivalent of Fanfiction Earth. If you're looking for Bronze Age heroes, they're scattered across various multiverse timelines, so since we're talking specifically about Batman, everyone's favorite grizzled, rodent-themed detective from "The Dark Knight Returns" is can be found on Earth 31. . THIRTY-ONE, OF COURSE, why would you look there? Well, sorry, I was on Earth 31, until a reworking of the universes made Earth 31 the home of bootleg versions of these characters. You think I'm joking, but I swear it's all true. That's a very general description of how DC Comics works, but what does that have to do with the Joker?

Well, DC has not been content to leave the concept of a parallel universe solely in the pages of comics. Since the first episode of the Flash TV series, the creators have been hinting at the existence of the DC multiverse. "The dimensional barrier burst, releasing unknown energies into our world - antimatter, dark energy, x-elements -." They're all theoretical." "Uh, yeah, physics gibberish. Particles. Eureka, we got it. But then in that same episode, a newspaper mentions a crisis and red skies. Both are references to DC's "Crisis Comets," perhaps most famously "Crisis on Infinite Earths," which are always these massive events spanning all of the major franchises where parallel Earths, including pirate worlds, intersect to resolve some threats. catastrophic. .

If DC is building a franchise crossover on a larger scale than Justice League, this would probably be the type of story they would try to tackle. And it seems they are interested. Since that first episode, "The Flash" has built many more major plots around multiverses, including a visit to Earth Two. The second season, episode thirteen of "The Flash" was a crossover hub, confirming a shared canon with both the Supergirl television show and another DCTV franchise, "Legends of Tomorrow." Now, in the last video, I mentioned DC's creative chef Geoff Johns and how he was a central player in the cinematic universe, as well as the three Jokers upon discovery.

Now, in an interview with BuzzFeed, he also mentioned the magic "M" word: multiverse. Quote: “Well, 'Arrow' and 'Flash' are the same universe, and we get a lot of great stories from it, especially when we have episodes, we cross over, but it's also where our superhero universe lives. We see it as the multiverse. We have our television universe and our cinematic universe, but they all coexist. "Of course, the foundation of a DC multiverse exists and is against it, but we also have the Dark Side. As hinted at in one of Batman's fever dreams in "Batman v Superman," the heroes will soon be forced to fight a villain whose signature is the Omega symbol, one of DC Comics' biggest villains and the main antagonist of Justice League: Dark Side Sure, we know this guy is coming, but based on the comics, we also know he's a. villain. who happens to cross multiverses quite frequently and has been known to kill some major players in some of these versions of Earth So what does that mean?

Well, let's look at the three Jokers

theory

one last time: we have a. Golden Age Wild Card in Suicide Squad and a Bronze Age Wild Card in The Dark Knight. We have an old Batman who is afraid of murder in the later DC movies and also one who is significantly less murderous in the DC comics franchise. the dark knight trilogy known for crossing its multiverses. and a film division that fights against the mammoth of Marvel, has been the victim time and again of negative reviews. So, considering all this, there is a trump card on the table for DC that does everything he was supposed to do.

It separates them from Marvel, provides excellent fan service, has the potential to redress all their mistakes with cinematic history, offers massive box office, and all while respecting their comic roots: creating a crossover of parallel universes; a crisis event. It's true! A Christian Bale-Ben Affleck Batman team up to fight the combined powers of mob boss Jared Leto's Joker and the deranged chaos wrought by Bronze Age Heath .Ledger in consequence. Sure, Marvel has its Avengers: it's just the Justice League with different faces. But a crossover between series, where several generations of actors who played the same character endure?

It's the only thing DC has that Marvel doesn't. Golden Age, crossed with the Bronze Age, crossed with the Silver Age, for those things! Who wouldn't love to see Christopher Reeve, the film's most iconic Superman, remember the Man of Steel in Martha's parallel universe? Everyone loves to talk about his mother, and I get goosebumps just thinking about a lineup of Batman doing a slow-motion heroic walk. Keaton, Clooney, Kilmer, Affleck, Bale, West! Heck, add the kid from Gotham and LEGO Batman! He also has a movie coming soon! Who wouldn't want to see that? It's like those episodes of Power Rangers where all the past seasons come together to fight a massive battle, except with Batman andversions of the Joker.

Heck, while you're at it, add Superman teaming up with the pirate Superman to fight the evil Superman. Simply put, the table is for a crossover between characters. Flashes with flashing lights. Batman with Batman. And at a time when DC movies are going through a bit of a crisis, a crisis might be what they need to solve all their problems. Thanks to the three wild cards for that, but Hey! It's just a theory! A cinematographic theory! Woohoo cut! Speaking of epic crossovers, check out my dear friends at the Wisecrack channel who just made a Batman v Superman video that made me see the entire movie from a whole new perspective.

I mean, have you ever stopped thinking that the movie comments on the similarities between Lex Luthor and Batman? Yeah! Me neither, but their video does a great job of making it seem like this movie had a lot more meaning behind it than it actually does. I mean, it's still a complicated mess, but it's almost like they want to have a deeper message, one that the joke team will make you really appreciate. So make sure Superman presses that button over there and tell them that MatPat sent you. He shows that I have value in life. But seriously, guys, if you enjoyed this channel, PLEASE watch the joke.

They are one of the few channels on YouTube that really do a great job of finding the balance between educational content but also fun and enjoyable to watch videos. They specialize in videos with purpose and deeper meaning, while being entertaining. What more could you want? This is the information age, so anything that makes information easier to digest is worth your time, so PLEASE, you owe it to yourself to take five minutes of your time and check them out. Chances are you won't be disappointed. Or, if you want more "The Dark Knight" theories, check out this video where we figure out where Batman is failing Gotham just by kissing Catwoman at the end of "The Dark Knight Rises." According to calculations, not if he had slipped his tongue, thousands of lives would have been saved, but more on that there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to... deploy!