The Dark Knight In Heath We Trust: A Ledgerbration: The TDK Joker Appreciation Thread

[crimsonrain650]

hes a good guy in it. also check out Ned Kelly if you can find it! really good movie

 

[TheFuture]

hes a good guy in it. also check out Ned Kelly if you can find it! really good movie

Ned Kelly? I've consistently heard people panning that movie

 

[p4poetic]

The only word to describe "The Brothers Grimm" is mediocre.

But anyway, that's cool (if not a bit concerning) that Ledger wanted Bale to beat the crap out of him. I remember Christian Bale said that Ledger had a bunch of bruises after that scene but they were both loving every minute of it. That scene must have been a blast to film.

So not just only getting beat up, but getting beat by Christian Bale...with his Batman armor on top of that He's noticeably smaller then Chris (but close in height). Talk about dedication.

 

[tuffenoughtoroc]

okay, so we know that Ledger's top two performances of all time were the Joker and Ennis Del Mar. But what are your favorite Heath Ledger movies, excluding Dark Knight and Brokeback mountain?

Here's mine.
1. I'm Not There
2. The Patriot
3. A Knight's Tale
4. Monster's Ball
5. Brother's Grimm

And if this did include the two best performances, Joker would be number 1, del mar would be 2nd.

Candy. That was another good one, despite being one of the most disturbing and depressing druggie movies since Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting.

 

[Boom]

1) The Dark Knight
2) Brokeback Mountain
3) Candy
4) I'm Not There
5) Monster's Ball
6) Four Feathers

 

[p4poetic]

http://www.aintitcool.com/talkback_display/15259

Back when rumors sufficed that Heath Ledger would play Batman. You've got to read this:

seriously, what do these people SEE in Heath Ledger??

May 21st, 2003
09:03:56 PM

I mean, "10 Things I Hate About You??" Followed by "The Patriot, "which had all the dramatic subtlety of an atomic bomb (oh, I know what will make this really deep!! Let's kill somebody in every scene!!) and was but a desperate attempt at integrity by Emmerich and Devlin. Then stupid wannabe excuse for a star vehicle Knight's Tale, then the Four Feathers, a dated, miscast ****ing story which added little to the original and deservedly flopped hard at the box office. Shows just how much we really care about ol' Heath. That guy's only legacy was ****ing both Heather Graham and Naomi Watts. Please. Cast Bale. Cast Bentley. Either of them will have the talent, the integrity, the fanboy faith so lacking in that schmuck Ledger.

 

[Mog85]

How wrong they were.

 

[Crook]

Not necessarily. None of those roles were terribly impressive. And at the time, he hadn't expressed his range as an actor. It wasn't until later into his career did he portray some acting chops.

 

[p4poetic]

But, you don't think it was a little odd how he spoke about what his legacy going to be? I mean, who talks about that, really. That's what struck me as awkward reading now.

 

[Goon 2 Goblin]

Not necessarily. None of those roles were terribly impressive. And at the time, he hadn't expressed his range as an actor. It wasn't until later into his career did he portray some acting chops.

And did so emphatically, almost out of the blue. He just was unfortunately cast in teeny bopper film roles until he broke free of that image, then he really showed his talent.

 

[Harrygucha]

I was thinking wouldn't it have been sweet if Alfred and Bruce worked together in the end to find Joker's location? I hated the Bat sonar thing, and was thinking maybe a google maps type technology would have fit in better with the realistic world. Sort of like a Google maps on steroids type technology to track down the Joker. This is the scene I thought up. Right after Two-Face shoots Wuerts we CUT TO:

INT. BAT BUNKER - NIGHT

Dimly lit.

Wayne sits at the BAT COMPUTER, surrounded by monitors. On the screens: The Wayne Tech LOGO. Underneath, a Password BAR. Wayne types in a password. All the screens come to life, displaying 2-D and 3-D maps of the entire city. Under each screen is underlined: 'Underdeveloped Telecomm Project.'

Wayne hits a key: Millions of blinking dots are scattered across the 2-d map - The city's cell phones.

Alfred walks in holding a thermos. Sets it on the computer desk.

Looks at the monitors.

ALFRED: Isn't this illegal, sir?

WAYNE: Maybe. But I have to find this man, Alfred. Time is running out.

Wayne, focused, puts on a pair of oversized ear phones. Points at the monitors.

WAYNE: I've turned the entire city's cell phones into microphones...

Alfred watches the tiny dots blinking on the screen. Underneath each dot is a zip code.

WAYNE (CONT.): And a high frequency generator/reciever.

ALRFRED (staring at the screen, fascinated): You're burning down the forest.

WAYNE: It's the only way.

Alfred puts on a pair of ear phones. Both men can hear the babbling of a million conversations.

WAYNE: Here's an audio sample.

Wayne pulls a USB drive and inserts it in the computer slot.

We hear an audio sample of the Joker's T.V. threat.

WAYNE: If he talks within range, we can triangulate his position.


THIS IS WHERE WE CUT TO WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE CITY.

INT. BAT BUNKER - CONTINUOUS

Alfred and Wayne sit. Staring at the monitors. Quiet desperation.

ALFRED (pointing at monitor): We got something coming from the ferries...

A dot is blinking on the monitor.

ALFRED: But it is not the source.

Wayne spots something on the second monitor: One of the millions of dots is throbbing RED.

WAYNE (emphatic): We got him.

Wayne types something. The graphic of the audio sample pulls up on the monitor, reading: MATCH FOUND.

Wayne takes off his ear phones.

ALFRED: He's West - Prewitt Building.

CUT TO:

INT. SAME

The Bat-suit rises out of the ground.

EXT. BAT BUNKER - CONT.

The Bat-pod shoots out of the bunker. And into the night.


Tada! Problem solved. This would have been way more believeable. NO SONAR. NO CRAPPY CGI. When Bat's gets to the Prewitt Building he can have Alfred helping him through his ear piece, and he can use night VISION and Ninja tactics. This would have been way cooler.

 

[dark_b]

i am very angry that in the interviews they dont show heath ledger. i think it would be amazing to see what he has to say about the joker.
you see everyone of the main cast talking. but from ledger nothing.

i hope this wont happen for the DVD.

 

[Two_Face]

So not just only getting beat up, but getting beat by Christian Bale...with his Batman armor on top of that He's noticeably smaller then Chris (but close in height). Talk about dedication.

I honestly got the vibe that if the Joker wanted to, he could do some sort of damage to Bats. He was actually able to keep him pinned down at the end when he tried pressing the detonater and he also went ****ing crazy when he was beating Batman with that pipe.

 

[johnlennon696]

Yeah, The Joker always had a physical strength about him as well as a mental one IMO...

 

[Two_Face]

Well, yeah, but I got a vibe from this Joker that I didn't get from any others. He could literally defeat Batman any way possible, and he actually won in the end. Sure, his experiment failed, but that wasn't truly important.

 

[Brian Braddock]

i am very angry that in the interviews they dont show heath ledger. i think it would be amazing to see what he has to say about the joker.
you see everyone of the main cast talking. but from ledger nothing.

i hope this wont happen for the DVD.

I would say you've overreacted a touch, Dark_b;

I'd love to get an insight into Heath's thought processes when it comes to the Joker too but the interviews used on tv etc promoting TDK were obviously filmed after his passing. They were for promotion purposes and filmed by the press - so thats why there was no Heath.

Warner probably interviewed Ledger during filming specifically for the DVD extras and will (hopefully) not omit them. The fact that they werent given to tv stations to edit into their promotional programmes alongside the other cast interviews suggests to me that they will be on the DVD.

Warner Bros knows that there are people who will buy the dvd if Heath's last interview about the role is on there.

No need to worry just yet.

 

[Nepenthes]

^ That is true, along with the fact that IF wb had a range of Ledger promo material to use...it probably would NOT be wise or sensitive to his death to flood the media with it while the movie is still out. It could be exploitive, if not percievied as exploitive by a lot of people. So yeah hang on dark_b it should come.

 

[Jokerluv]

^ That is true, along with the fact that IF wb had a range of Ledger promo material to use...it probably would NOT be wise or sensitive to his death to flood the media with it while the movie is still out. It could be exploitive, if not percievied as exploitive by a lot of people. So yeah hang on dark_b it should come.

I disagree. This is what people are interested in and if anything it wouldn't hurt the film, it would create more buzz around it, positive buzz. Yeah, you will always have a few that will see things differently, but honestly, if a scene with Heath in a plastic trash bag, implication body bag, didn't hurt ticket sales, why would promo material be considered exploitive?

Most people I have talked to want to know more about his preparation for the character, how he felt, etc. It wouldn't be like WB was using any promo footage they had as a way to capitalize on his death to sell tickets. This is what actors do, they promote.

 

[p4poetic]

I think at this point, everyone has been pretty much The Dark Knight-ed out. The wait will be worth it.

 

[Two_Face]

I would say you've overreacted a touch, Dark_b;

I'd love to get an insight into Heath's thought processes when it comes to the Joker too but the interviews used on tv etc promoting TDK were obviously filmed after his passing. They were for promotion purposes and filmed by the press - so thats why there was no Heath.

Warner probably interviewed Ledger during filming specifically for the DVD extras and will (hopefully) not omit them. The fact that they werent given to tv stations to edit into their promotional programmes alongside the other cast interviews suggests to me that they will be on the DVD.

Warner Bros knows that there are people who will buy the dvd if Heath's last interview about the role is on there.

No need to worry just yet.

I'd love it if he actually had said a lot on how he felt about the character and his thought process. That alone would make me buy the DVD. I also hope they include some other Joker stuff like maybe some TAS episodes.

 

[cinematheque]

And did so emphatically, almost out of the blue. He just was unfortunately cast in teeny bopper film roles until he broke free of that image, then he really showed his talent.

I dunno...I disagree. The thing that always irked me prior to Brokeback was that a lot of people...many of them men...severely underestimated the talent of Heath Ledger because they thought of him as a pretty boy. But Heath Ledger, though pretty, was never specifically a pretty guy, even in 10 Things (well, he was, because I wouldn't tell him he's not a pretty guy). Actually even with 10 Things I thought that Patrick Verona was likely one of the most complicated characters to fall into a high school movie, perhaps helped by Shakespeare and not surpassing John Bender but still pretty surprising. But there are always people who are willing to trash talk a pretty actor because they seem to believe that he can't be both heartthrob material and good actor. I'm not saying that I heard a lot of men say this because they were jealous, but because for some reason the physical attractiveness of a male seems to be something that subtracts from the total amount of talent. I mean, this is all rambling, but with any actor there were always people who ran around wildly shouting, "This man has no talent!" without having any idea what they were talking about, or without contextualizing. Just because they may have thought The Patriot sucked, and as a Mel Gibson vehicle who can blame them?, this person wildly accused everyone in it of being talentless, which is unfair.

And it was like that with 10 Things, and The Four Feathers, and A Knight's Tale (which, for the record, are well-loved movies by a number of people). Heath Ledger tended to get the shaft because he was not in your typical Oscar-caliber movie until Monster's Ball, which led directly to Brokeback Mountain. But think about the question of whether or not Heath could win the Oscar for the Joker similarly--but for some naysayers a lot of people seem to be in agreement that his skill in portraying the Joker is worthy of an Oscar, but the hang-up is that comic book movies have never been the type to win Oscars for anything except...sound mixing, really. Because an actor doesn't do those serious business roles, he often is discounted until he does. And of course ten years passed between 10 Things and TDK--which is a lot of time to learn and improve. But Heath Ledger was always good--he just wasn't always taken seriously. Which just means, power to the people who did, and who are willing to do the same for others.

Uh, just rambling. The short version is that Heath has rocked since the beginning, and it just took some people far too long to catch on, and there are always rabid naysayers who shout wild statements on these here internets without even bothering to think twice about it. And because as hard as people try to call some of the early stuff he did crap or in the very least no big deal, there are a lot more people than I think anyone realizes who are ridiculously attached to some of Heath's early movies. And that includes men AND women. But, there are a lot of people who discount something because of its genre automatically, superhero movies included. But Heath has always been amazing. He didn't become good...he was always good. He became great.

I was thinking wouldn't it have been sweet if Alfred and Bruce worked together in the end to find Joker's location? I hated the Bat sonar thing, and was thinking maybe a google maps type technology would have fit in better with the realistic world. Sort of like a Google maps on steroids type technology to track down the Joker.

Tada! Problem solved. This would have been way more believeable. NO SONAR. NO CRAPPY CGI. When Bat's gets to the Prewitt Building he can have Alfred helping him through his ear piece, and he can use night VISION and Ninja tactics. This would have been way cooler.

No. What should have happened is that since they couldn't find the Joker anywhere in Gotham no matter how hard they looked, Alfred should have BURNED DOWN GOTHAM. Also, he could catch any jewel thieves that happened to be hiding.

 

[Two_Face]

Just to liven up the thread a bit:

 

[tuffenoughtoroc]

^Awwww. All of them are lovely. The second-to-last one with him standing there leaning on the baby stroller made me smile. It does look kind of jokeresque.

 

[$klaary]

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/6440

Thumbs up!

 

[deathfromabove]

these pics make me especially sad.

poor michelle and matilda...

life is too fragile sometimes.