Last time on Film Theory--
So there you have it. All three Jokers fit cleanly into the three Joker comic model.
But then, that prompts the question:
Now that Jared Leto is playing the Joker in Suicide Squad, is he a whole new character,
Or which Joker line would he be continuing?
MOBIUS CHAIR! Tell me! Who is Jared Leto's Joker?!
Today! The thrilling conclusion!!
[INTRO MUSIC]
Hello internet
Welcome to Film Theory!
With an episode that's going to spend more time analyzing the Joker's Suicide Squad appearance
than the time he actually spent on screen in the movie.
Seriously, it was like, "Harley, I'm coming for you in a helicopter." *sshhh--BOOM*
"Never mind...see you next movie..."
But don't let the brevity of his appearance fool you.
He's probably the most important part of the film,
and definitely a whole lot more important than that hula-dancing enchantress.
Because his connection to the three-Joker theory leaves the door WIDE open to some huge
revelations about the DC film universe and where it might be headed next.
Last time we took a look at the three-Joker theory, the fact that the three live-action versions of the Joker from the movies
perfectly correspond to the HUGE reveal in DC comics that there were three different Jokers running amok.
There's the Jack Nicholson Joker from the golden age; the mob-boss mass-murderer,
the Cesar Romero Joker from the silver age of comics; a bank-heisting prankster,
and the Heath Ledger Joker from the bronze age and modern age of comics; the psychopathic agent of chaos.
If you haven't seen that last episode, click on this Bat signal and grapple hook your way over to that video.
But now we tackle the fourth and final live-action Joker:
Suicide Squad's Jared Leto.
How does HE fit into all of this?
Well, it turns out Jared Leto isn't a new Joker at all;
he's just a reboot of one of the prior versions we've already seen.
So the question is...
Which Joker is he?
(Snazzy background music)
Will it be...
Joker number 1?
Joker number 2?
Or Joker number 3?
Jared Leto...Your dream Joker match is...
The golden age Joker, Jack Nicholson!
He's a mobster with a penchant for crushed purple velvet, who'll always keep you smiling.
He loves long walks on the beach and dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.
But why?
Well, just look at the evidence.
First, they both revel in violence.
The Nicholson Joker and Jared Leto both are killers who ENJOY killing.
We see it time and again in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman;
Jack Nicholson gleefully incinerating people with electrified hand buzzers,
dancing around while shooting former partners,
stabbing political figures in public with pens
while Bruce Wayne wanders around the crime scene like an idiot.
Now look at Suicide Squad,
where the Joker is frequently wielding a machine gun, gleefully spraying gunfire everywhere.
Throughout the movie, we also see him repeatedly playing mind games with other criminals before either killing them or having them killed.
This means that we can solidly rule out the Cesar Romero Joker
because he was from the silver age, where violence and gore were all but white-washed out of comics.
He was just the kooky, kuh-RAZY prankster who used wacky props to rob banks.
Writers of the Silver age comics specifically wanted the Joker to be more creative,
resourceful with his weaponry.
Never resorting to traditional guns and knives.
And now look at Suicide Squad's iconic knife arrangement scene.
Not only does it reveal Joker's OCD tendencies and introduce the world to the
verbal equivalent of the slow clap--
HA--
Seriously, that laugh is a slow clap.
--but it reveals that Leto's Joker ain't showing the same ingenuity with his armory.
--guns, knives--
--more guns, more knives--
Cesar is out!
Seeing that all you guys were worried that I'd spoiled this video with the thumbnail from last time.
I pay attention to this stuff.
But, then what about Heath Ledger's Bronze Age Joker?
Well, just think back to the Dark Knight. Ledger's Joker is a loner, insane,
out-of-control, answering to
no one. He appears and disappears randomly, surprising and often turning on
the gangs who hired him. This clearly doesn't match up with the Jared Leto
Joker--I mean, seriously, Suicide Squad's Joker is like the Kanye West of Gotham, a
social butterfly that traded in his shutter sunglasses for a blinged-out
grill. I mean, the guy hangs out in clubs with his entourage. For crying out loud, he has
a girlfriend WHO, it's worth mentioning, we see him risk his life several times to save.
He's surrounded by henchmen who act less like cronies and more like Bronies!
Or, I guess just like bros, really. it's the first time that we ever see the Joker
with a social circle--or is it? Turns out the Jack Nicholson Joker matches Jared Leto
when it comes to this little posse of his. just like Leto, Jack is a crime
boss with an army of disposable henchmen at his--um--disposal. In fact, both our mob
bosses rule over organized crime in Gotham. They mobilize huge efforts to do
things like attack art museums or break into maximum-security prisons. And the
important part about all of this that these activities have literally nothing
to do with Batman. In fact, Batman's only role there is to get in the way of
everything. For Heath Ledger's Joker, his goals only ever revolve around Batman. It
goes back to what we talked about last episode: the Bronze Age Joker is totally
dependent on Batman: The Yin to his Yang; the sunny to share; the third pairing
that should be funny and isn't coming to mind right now. But the Golden Age
Joker's doesn't! His crimes and schemes planned Batman is only a roadblock to
completing those. So there you have it: Jared Leto's Joker is a reinvention of
the Golden Age OG Joker of the comics, the grinning Jack Nicholson ask mobster.
That's been softly confirmed by Suicide Squad's director that he went into the
Golden Age origins of the character when deciding how the Joker would fit into
this new movie's world. "But so what?" I hear you saying. "Why'd you force me to wait on a
cliffhanger just for this?" Excellent question Strawman Commenter, your
patience will be well-worth it because knowing how Leto fits in with the three
Joker theory has some wild implications about the DCU. You see, one of the major
ways DC's comic universe differs from that of Marvel's is its emphasis on parallel
worlds. The concept allowed writers the creative freedom to explore alternative
versions of characters and their histories without contradicting the
established continuity of the main universe. The modern version of this dates
back to 1961, when the writers of The Flash were trying to figure out 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, travels to another Earth,
accidentally vibrating at the right speed to appear on another planet where
he meets Jay Garrick, that parallel Earth's version of the Flash. TL:DL,
Too Long Didn't Listen,
They created parallel Earths to try and explain away the over-complicated stories.
Because using physical cosmology hypotheses is always going to make
things simpler, am I right? Yeah, who's with me? Don't leave me hanging; high-five
years-your screen right now. Please. PLEASE don't leave me hanging. I have a
perpetual fear of being left hanging. PLEASE HIGH-FIVE YOUR SCREEN RIGHT NOW.
*WHOO* Thank you. Anyway, the number and canonicity of these alternate universes
have buried over the years due to DC's policy abusing or abandoning the concept
at various points in its history with the number of Earths going anywhere
between fifty-two to infinity--AND BEYOND. Earth One is most famous for being
inhabited by the Silver Age heroes. Earth Two's claim to fame is being the
universe where Quebec is an independent nation from Canada.
Oh, and it's also home to the Golden Age version of these characters. And then
that would leave Earth Three as the home to the Bronze Age characters right? HA! Yeah,
I wish. That would have made this episode a whole lot easier to write. No, Earth Three
is Backwards History Earth, a world where Christopher Columbus discovered Europe
instead of America and where morality is reversed, showcasing evil versions of all
your favorite heroes. And no, I'm not making any of this up it's basically the
DC equivalent to Fanfiction Earth. if you're looking for the Bronze Age heroes,
they're scattered around the various multiverse timeline, so since we're
specifically talking about Batman, everyone's favorite grizzled, rodent-themed
detective from "The Dark Knight Returns," can be found on Earth Thirty-one. Thirty-one,
OBVIOUSLY, why would you think to look there?
Well, uh, sorry, he WAS on Earth Thirty-one until a reworking of the universes made Earth Thirty-one
home to the PIRATE versions of these characters. You think I'm joking, but I
swear, I swear it is all real.
That's a very general overview of how DC's Comics work, but what's it got to do with
the Joker? Well, DC hasn't been content with just leaving the parallel universe
concept solely to the pages of the comics. From the very first episode of
the Flash TV series, the creators have been hinting at the existence of the DC
multiverse. "Dimensional barrier ruptured, unleashing unknown energies into our
world--antimatter, dark energy, x-elements--""Those are all theoretical."
Uh, yes, blobitty physics gibberish. Particles. Eureka, we've gotten it. But then later
that same episode, a newspaper mentions a crisis and red skies.
Both of these are references to DC's "crisis" comics perhaps most famously
"Crisis on Infinite Earths," which are always these massive evente spanning all
of the main franchises where the parallel Earths, pirate worlds included,
cross over to solve some cataclysmic threats. If DC is building to a franchise
crossover on a scale larger than Justice League, this would likely be the type of
story they'd try to tackle. And it seems like they're interested. Since that first
episode, "The Flash" has built much more of its main plot around multiverses,
including a visit to Earth Two. Season Two, Episode Thirteen of "The Flash" was a hub of
crossovers, confirming a shared cannon with both the Supergirl TV show and
another DCTV franchise, "Legends of Tomorrow."
Now, during the last video, I brought up DC creative chief Geoff Johns and how he
was a key player in the cinematic universe, as well as the three Joker
reveale. Now, in an interview with BuzzFeed, he's also mentioned the magic
"M"-word--multiverse. Quote: "Well, 'Arrow' and 'Flash' are the same universe, and we get a
lot of great story out of that -- especially when we have episodes that
cross them over, but that's also where our superhero universe lives. We look at
it as the multiverse. We have our TV universe and our film universe, but they
all co-exist." So clearly, the groundwork for a DC multiverse exists and is on their
mind, but then we have Dark Side. As hinted at as one of batman's fever dreams
in "Batman v Superman," the heroes will soon be forced to fight against a
villain whose signature is the Omega symbol, one of the biggest baddies of DC
Comics, and the main antagonist to the Justice League: Dark Side. So very clearly,
we know that this guy's coming, but based on the comics, we also know that he's a
villain who just so happens to cross multiverses quite frequently and has
been known to kill off some major players on some of these versions of
Earth. So what does it all mean? Well let's look at the three-Joker theory one
last time: we have a Golden Age Joker in Suicide Squad and a Bronze Age Joker in
the Dark Knight. We have an old Batman unafraid to murder in recent DC movies
and also one who is significantly less murdery in the dark knight trilogy. We
have a comics franchise known for crossing over its multiverses and a
movie division fighting against the juggernaut of Marvel, fallen victim time
and again to negative reviews. So considering all of this, there's one
trump card on the table for DC that does everything they needed to do. It
differentiates them from Marvel, provides huge fan service, has the potential to
reset all their missteps with movie lore, delivers a massive box office, and all
while still adhering to their comic roots: creating a parallel universe
crossover; a crisis event. That's right! A Christian Bale-Ben Affleck Batman team
to fight the combined powers of the mob boss Jared Leto Joker and the unhinged
chaos bringer of the Bronze Age Heath Ledger equivalent. Sure, Marvel has its
Avengers: it's just the Justice League with different faces. But an inter-series
crossover where multiple generations of actors who played the
same character team up? It's the ONE thing DC has that Marvel doesn't.
Golden Age, crossing over with Bronze Age, crossing over with Silver Age, for that
matter! Who WOULDN'T love to see Christopher Reeve, film's most iconic Superman,
reminisce with the Man of Steel over their parallel universe Marthas? Everyone
loves talking about their mothers so much and I get goosebumps just thinking
about a lineup of Batman doing a slow-motion hero walk. Keaton, Clooney, Kilmer,
Affleck, Bale, West! Heck, throw on the kid from Gotham and LEGO Batman! He's got a movie
coming up, too!
Who WOULDN'T want to see that? It's like those episodes of power rangers where all
the past seasons get together to do one massive battle, 'cept with Batman and
versions of the Joker. Heck, while you're at it, throw in Superman teaming up with
pirate Superman to fight evil Superman. Long story short, the table is set for an
intra-character crossover.
Flashes with flashes. Batmen with Batmen. And at a time when DC's movies
are undergoing a bit of a crisis, a crisis might just be the thing that they
need to solve all of their problems. Thank the three Jokers for that one, but
Hey! That's just a theory! A FILM theory! Aaaaannnd cut!
Speaking of epic crossovers, check out my dear friends over at the Wisecrack
channel, who just did a video about Batman v Superman that got me to look at
the whole movie in a completely new light. I mean, have you ever stopped to
consider that the movie is commenting on the similarities between lex luthor and
Batman?
Yeah! I didn't either, but their video does an amazing job making it seem like
this movie had a lot more meaning behind it than it actually does.
I mean, it's still a convoluted mess, but it's almost like they intended it to
have a deeper message--one that the Wisecrack team will make you truly
appreciate. So make sure that you Superman slap that button right there
and tell 'em that MatPat sent ya. Proves that I have value in life. But in all
seriousness, guys, if you enjoyed this channel, then PLEASE check out Wisecrack.
They're one of the few channels on YouTube that really do an amazing job of
finding the balance between educational content, but also videos that are funny
and enjoyable to watch. They specialize in videos with a purpose, deeper meaning, all while
being entertained
What more can you ask for? This is the information age, so anything that makes
the information easier to swallow's definitely worth your time, so PLEASE--
you owe it to yourself to carve off five minutes of your time and check them out.
Odds are you're not going to be disappointed. Or, if you want more
theories about "The Dark Knight," check out this video where we calculate how Batman
fails Gotham simply by kissing Catwoman at the end of "The Dark Knight Rises."
Based on the calculations, if he hadn't slipped her the tongue, thousands of
lives would have been saved, but more on that over there. Now if you'll excuse me,
I have to...ROLL OUT!