As I said above, the fact that the targeting system somehow magically missed him just totally rubbishes Joker's stand there. There was no excuse for it.
It was silly.
Okay, it's silly.
So? Joker still didn't know Batman was going to miss and still didn't run. And I bet not even you knew Batman was going to miss the first time you saw the movie.
Come now, Payaso, you're clutching at straws there, mate. If Batman decided to not kill him then he wouldn't have pulled the trigger, or he would have completely veered the target sites off Joker at the last minute. Neither happened.
Second, the targeting system zeros in on Joker himself with pinpoint accuracy. Clearly the targeting system is designed for small targets. Batman had been using it a minute previously to shoot down Joker's men.
I just threw some theories. It doesn't have anything to do with my point anyways.
That's a cop out, mate. Everything that happens in every movie is because that's how the writers wrote it. No exception here.
The difference here is that Ledger's Joker was written smarter and more fearless. Jack Nicholson's Joker lived in a Gotham City where he could announce on TV that he would be at the parade at midnight to dump money on the crowd, and there's no Cops there waiting for him when the time comes. The Batwing can zero in on him and shoot at him, and every single bullet will miss him, but he can take a long barrel gun out of his pants and take down the Batwing with one shot. Axis Chemicals is exposed as a front for Grissom's mob, but the place stays open and beyond suspicion afterwards, where Joker can make his poisons in peace.
That's what I'm saying.
Both versions have things that are difficult to swallow. Not only B89.
But as for fearlessness, both Jokers showed they were not afraid of bullets. Well, except that Ledger's Joker ran away from the bank owner when he was shooting. And no "silly thing" or "cop out" was apparently there to justify that.
The authorities in Gotham City in B'89 really are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. I could probably get away with being a super villain there
Same with Nolan's Gotham. You can even have big scars on your face and still can fool Gotham Police's security and end up - you and a henchman - close to the Major so you can shoot him.
Not only that, you can easily kill mobsters and their bodyguards because apparently they're quite weak and gullible.
Also, authorities don't seem to be effective enough to check tons of gasoline and dynamite in a hospital and ferries, even when it's obvious that they could be attacked.
Here's the facts, Ledger's Joker showed no fear towards the prospect of death several times, such as when he challenged Batman to run him over with the Bat-Pod, when he put in a gun in Harvey's hand and pointed it at his head, and when he laughed all the way when Batman tossed him off the Prewitt building.
Another fact is that he did show fear when the bank owner was shooting.
In my opinion, these really show his fearless nature towards death because he could have really died in all those scenarios. For some baffling reason the Batwing's targeting system decided to completely foul up when he fired on the Joker. That's why I don't see it as a fair comparison.
It is not more unfair than the 'Jack screamed, Ledger laughed' comparison. One of them had a reason to laugh, Batman killing him was his ultimate victory, the other one had death as the ultimate defeat.
Both Jokers were under death danger. None of them could know if the shooter was going to hit or miss.
If you want to go out of the way and criticize the entire movie and/or their tones, ok. I did it myself just to show how the game can be played both ways and works.
But at one point Ledger's Joker showed fear, just as Nicholson's Joker did when he finally fell towards his death.
You're comparing the wrong scenes. 'C'mon, I want you to do it. HIT ME!!'
Think about it. I know you remember that scene. Neither Joker was afraid of
Batman killing them. They knew better. Except I'm pretty convinced that in 89's case with the Batwing it was just corny writing as they don't address that side of Batman's character much, if at all.
What they did with Batman is another thing. It was 1939 Batman blah blah, he killed at the time blah blah.
The point is that both Jokers showed fear at one point.
I think it makes much more sense that the cash was fake. I think the Joker would find it pretty humorous that all those Gothamites turned out in droves for money, only to be killed, and to top it off, they didn't actually get real money.
Cool. Great point.
I'm just saying that was not what happened in the movie.
Both Jokers didn't care about the money but sending the message, which in both cases was that people of Gotham are corruptible.
Secondly, you're comparing the wrong instances. TDK's Joker obviously had no fear of Batman killing him. This was obvious. He wanted him to. He didn't want to be killed by the Bank Manager because there was no fun in it. Getting killed by Batman, or Dent, had the bonus of knowing that he had completely ruined a "good" soul. Which is what the Joker was after.
Now, THAT's a very important point.
Ledger's Joker did not fear to be killed AS LONG as it was someone who would be corrupted by the act of killing. Harvey Dent or Batman.
Being killed by any of them means the ultimate victory for Joker. THAT's why Joker laughed when Batman threw him off the building and Jack's Joker didn't.
Burton's Batman did not have non-killing rules and he knws it. For all he know Batman threw him to the chemicals on purpose.
From that perspective Ledger's Joker knew it was hard that Batman should kill him in the HIT ME scene. And that's why Jack's Joker probably knew Batman was able to kill him right then in the parade scene.