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JRA
Joined: Sep 17 2007
Location: The Opium Trail
Posts: 3475
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Jokers...duh
I think I'm gonna go with Hammil on this one and I have two reasons why. The creators/writers/directors of the show understood that he's a psychopathic killer, but they couldn't have him actually kill anyone because the Animated Series was a children's show. But if they were given the creative freedom that Christopher Nolan was given, we'd have seen stuff that was just as brutal as the pencil through the eye. In fact, this clip from a Batman animated movie comes pretty damn close in terms of evil to anything Heath Ledger's ever done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QPGqqLYSjg
My other argument is I remember watching an interview with Paul Dini (head writer of the Animated Series) and he said that they struck a perfect balance with the Joker as opposed to either being a harmless clown or a psychotic killer, furthermore adding that the latter completely defeats the purpose of the character.
That latter description is exactly what Heath Ledger was. I mean if you take off the makeup, you have just a vicious serial killer. There was very little humor in what Heath did and why the fuck would you call yourself the Joker if there is no humor to what you do?
The other thing is I've tried reading Batman books in both "Joker voices" (stop laughing. No for real, stop laughing) and when Heath's comes up it just sounds too [why so] serious. There are just some flat out silly lines from Joker and there's just no way that Nolan takes the Joker too seriously to have him deliver those lines, yet that's the character. I mean really, can anyone picture the "song and dance" scene in Killing Joke voiced by Heath Ledger?
THAT is why Mark Hammil is the best Joker. I'm actually stoked about the Arkham Asylum game coming out, hopefully they show this Joker doing some real fucking damage.
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There are a lot of what if's in life Donny. What if I hit you really hard in the face, knocked yo shit to the back of yo skull? What if I....had you girl gargle my nuts? The fact remains, you are a fuckin mutant. |
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Char Aznable
Title: Char Classicâ„¢
Joined: Jul 24 2006
Location: Robot Boombox HQ
Posts: 7542
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Both were good, but I have to go with Hammil on this one.
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Bouya
Title: Delinquent
Joined: Aug 15 2007
Location: Suzuran
Posts: 1443
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Cesar Romero.
Anyway, I'd say Hammil is the one most people will associate as far as the voice and laugh goes, especially folks who were kids in the 90s and that was their first exposure to Joker. But Ledger is closer to replicating the comic character. The Joker was initially a cold killer and still was the last I saw (Infinite Crisis was the last DC I read). It's sometimes presented in a funny way, or he'll say an amusing line or whatever, like when he shot Alexander Luthor, for example.
But this is the same character that beat Jason Todd to death with a crowbar and then blew him up. Who shot Batgirl and paralyzed her, then put naked pictures of her up for her own father to see. He's not always a funny character, and I don't think he's necessarily meant to be humorous, which is why they had Ledger go dark with it.
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GPFontaine
Joined: Dec 06 2007
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 11244
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On screen I don't think that Mark Hammil could have played the Joker's physical character as well as Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson. Then again I doubt either of them could have played Luke Skywalker.
Acting aside and just for the sake of voice comparison, I do like Mark as the joker. His voice fits the part without much forced effort.
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JRA
Joined: Sep 17 2007
Location: The Opium Trail
Posts: 3475
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GPFontaine wrote: |
On screen I don't think that Mark Hammil could have played the Joker's physical character as well as Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson. Then again I doubt either of them could have played Luke Skywalker.
Acting aside and just for the sake of voice comparison, I do like Mark as the joker. His voice fits the part without much forced effort. |
Yea but didn't Mark just play himself for Luke?
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There are a lot of what if's in life Donny. What if I hit you really hard in the face, knocked yo shit to the back of yo skull? What if I....had you girl gargle my nuts? The fact remains, you are a fuckin mutant. |
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TheRoboSleuth
Title: Sleuth Mark IV
Joined: Aug 08 2006
Location: The Gritty Future
Posts: 2739
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GPFontaine wrote: |
On screen I don't think that Mark Hammil could have played the Joker's physical character as well as Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson. Then again I doubt either of them could have played Luke Skywalker.
Acting aside and just for the sake of voice comparison, I do like Mark as the joker. His voice fits the part without much forced effort. |
He was good as Cock-knocker though.
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Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
Posts: 24869
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Bouya wrote: |
But Ledger is closer to replicating the comic character. The Joker was initially a cold killer and still was the last I saw |
This is a popular line, it's wrong, and I'm sick of hearing it repeated. The Golden Age sucked. Hardcore. It is unreadable, goofy trash with some violence thrown in for good measure. The only thing worse than the Golden Age is the Silver Age, because the Comics Code Authority kept violence out of the comics, so the stories got even goofier. If all DC characters were still following their Golden Age personas and speech patterns, no one would read comic books. So it really doesn't matter how the characters were portrayed originally.
The reality is that the Joker has been portrayed several different ways since his 1940 introduction, depending on both who was writing the book and what the political climate surrounding comic books was at the time. And one the most popular portrayals of the Joker, the one in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, isn't even canon. There is no definitive Joker, there's just whatever Joker you happen to like the best. But there were never objectively or definitively be, a "true" or "best" Joker.
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Andrew Man
Title: Is a Funklord
Joined: Jan 30 2007
Location: Annandale, VA
Posts: 5603
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GPFontaine wrote: |
On screen I don't think that Mark Hammil could have played the Joker's physical character as well as Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson. |
Honestly, that's what I thought about Ledger when I first heard that he was cast, I and many others were very skeptical about him playing Joker, yet he did a phenomenal job. Who knows how Hammill would have performed as a live incarnation of the Joker.
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Kojjiro!
Joined: Feb 16 2008
Posts: 832
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I thought The Joker was hilarious in The Dark Knight, and practically every time he was onscreen was terrific creepy comedy (especially the hospital scene)
I do like Mark Hamill though, but they're both great.
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IceWarm
Joined: Dec 22 2008
Location: Breckenridge, Colorado
Posts: 1691
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I quess I'll go with Mark Hamill but I loved pretty much every other person to play the Joker. I'm going with Hamill because I watched the animated series so much and loved it.
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"Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it’s because they sat there that they were able to do it."
"Fighting in a basement offers a lot of difficulties, number one being, you're fighting in a basement."
"You're Not So Tough Without Your Veggie!" |
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Bouya
Title: Delinquent
Joined: Aug 15 2007
Location: Suzuran
Posts: 1443
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Syd Lexia wrote: |
Bouya wrote: |
But Ledger is closer to replicating the comic character. The Joker was initially a cold killer and still was the last I saw |
This is a popular line, it's wrong, and I'm sick of hearing it repeated. The Golden Age sucked. Hardcore. It is unreadable, goofy trash with some violence thrown in for good measure. The only thing worse than the Golden Age is the Silver Age, because the Comics Code Authority kept violence out of the comics, so the stories got even goofier. If all DC characters were still following their Golden Age personas and speech patterns, no one would read comic books. So it really doesn't matter how the characters were portrayed originally.
The reality is that the Joker has been portrayed several different ways since his 1940 introduction, depending on both who was writing the book and what the political climate surrounding comic books was at the time. And one the most popular portrayals of the Joker, the one in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, isn't even canon. There is no definitive Joker, there's just whatever Joker you happen to like the best. But there were never objectively or definitively be, a "true" or "best" Joker. |
Then how about "Ledger more closely portrays multiple versions of how the Joker has been presented in the past 70 years in the comics", then? You can be sick of it all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that the Joker's persona is a killer first and humorous second. Sorry.
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Dii Infer
Title: Boobie Engineer
Joined: Jun 01 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 653
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Mark Hamill, easily. He has the sinister yet whimsical characteristics of Joker and originally managed to present it in a way suitable for children. Now THAT'S fucking talent right there! Ledger was also brilliant, but overall Hamill managed to do Joker with more versatility (as a voice actor, at least), IMO.
Sidenote: I think Hamill's greatest performance as Mr. J would be in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Because the movie was more edgy than the cartoon from which it spawned, so was the Joker this time. That part when he gasses the councilman while holding the helpless man down on his desk and laughs -- indicating he has fun doing his evil deed -- is creepy as hell, let alone for a cartoon movie.
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Haddox
Flying Hellfish
Title: Pirate
Joined: May 11 2006
Location: The High Seas
Posts: 174
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Fuck all y'all. Steve Miller is the only true Joker.
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Dr. Jeebus
Moderator
Title: SLF Harbinger of Death
Joined: Sep 03 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
Posts: 5228
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