#thecheckin: Ep. 16 - Joker (2019) and Intellectual Property Morality
There may have been concerns, but that doesn't mean that studios and other people won't find a way to use these real life concerns as a way to build the credibility and the interest in those films. But I went to go see it in 2019 and I wanted to get the full experience. It was opening day. I saw it here in the north suburbs of Chicago, and it was a full house. It was a very, very busy house
I'm actually going to link it here. That was sort of a more gritty take of Oscar the Grouch. And I mean, it's interesting to think about the Joker both as a movie that lives within the sort of continuity of comic books and also Batman, but as a film that is trying to really ground itself in what we think is reality when it comes to wealth and social status and mental health and all of these things
I do think that you're completely spot on in that the Joker, while not a bad film, doesn't really ever get the opportunity to fully take off because it's handcuffed by the Batman IP. And instead in Chat, Taxi Driver and King of Comedy you get films that are very thematically similar to the Joker, but really get to put the pedal to the metal and examine all of the themes that it introduces
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
I should say that is a response to get the Batman intellectual property back into the good graces of the public. Because after everything that was Joe Schumacher's Batman and Robin in 1997, that was a dead franchise for nearly ten years. There were no Batman films touching the box office. So to see how those films devolve, it's really just a fascinating exercise in how sometimes you have to go away for people to remember how much they missed you
And so when you brought up, like, thematic characterizations and similarities between Martin Scorsese's work with Taxi Driver and King of Comedy with Todd Phillips Joker, the issue with that, I've always said is it's cosmetic similarities only. Like, if you look at Joker, I've always said it's a beautiful film. It's a good looking movie composition wise. It does a lot of interesting and things with its time period of 1981, it has a very distinctive look