I'd just like to say thank you so much for helping me make The Closer Look my job. Its hit me recently how lucky I am to be doing this. I don't expect to do this forever. I've had a few poor performing videos lately, but honestly I'm happy about that. They've made me rethink my entire mindset around creation and I'm coming back at it with a fire in me. I'll never take my position, or your attention for granted. Here's to many more years of winging about movies! Also, I tried a more comedic, personality driven style with this video. Let me know if you prefer it to my usual, more objective (shudders at the word) approach.
I really enjoy your videos. they have helped me identify why I feel the way about movies that I do and have helped me explain my opinons on said movies much better. 👍
I don't have a problem with jukebox musicals as a genre but there's a right way and a wrong way to use licensed songs to tell a story and this is clearly the wrong way.
@@SaraShea-qf1gy I’m admittedly not well versed in the technical critique of musicals. That being said I unironically liked the songs in Strange Magic. What about them seemed like poor choices for the movie?
I think Shrek 2 is a really good example of a good jukebox musical. There is a reason why people think of Shrek when they hear "I need a hero" more than the musical the song came from
Shrek is similair concept to the game he mentioned in the video, alternate world, and theyre even in alternaive version of hollywood Shrek universe generally does great job of using fairytale characters in very unique ways, referencing pop culture while still being original
This might sound silly, but to this day, no musical number moves me and makes me feel something quite like "i need a hero" - i legit choke up with tears of joy nowdays
Ironically for me that song is forever tied to Short Circuit 2. Not that Shrek misused it. But Short Circuit used it for a very dire, stressful part of the movie and it's all I see when I hear it.
That's what I thought when I first heard it was going to be a musical! It could have been quite gruesome in it's satire, but, no, we had to "own the chuds"...🙄
We have something close, which is Chicago, a movie-musical about a murderer who wants to use all the attention and publicity their murder brought to make it big in the entertainment industry.
I think its more realistic psychologically musical. Cuz believe or not, as someone whos not healthy mentally, i LOVE this movie. Reality is harsh, sometimes its entertaining sometimes its not. Sometimes its tragedy sometimes its comedy. Sometimes its happy sometimes its sad. LIFE IS CONFUSING AND CRAZY.
I’ve watched several reviews of Joker 2, but this is the first one that actually articulates why it doesn’t work-the songs being repetitive and failing to move the story foremost among them. I completely agree that a musical might work in concept, but the execution here is abysmal.
Agreed. So many fake experts on the internet with their surface-level critiques. So few people actually have the skill to examine and then articulate the inner workings of films or video games.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
I also actually love a lot of the ideas of the story- showing the fault of lee's ideology first among them, though i wish they'd used punchline (you know, the one who actually acts like that) rather then Harley who's abused into a torturous relationship in pretty much all forms of her origin.
If the plan for the plot was always to a) be a jukebox musical and b) have the songs be exaggerated, fantasy manifestations of Joker and Harley's feelings they should have, frankly, gone weirder. Be Moulin Rouge, and then like Moulin Rouge escalate from comedy to drama when tragedy strikes at the end. You could even do the Moulin Rouge thing where the exaggerated tone is explained in-universe as the main character telling a story. I think the thing is Baz Luhrmann can do it because he has a theatre background. Meanwhile, Todd Phillips has the Hangover movies
I do wish they had gone a little crazier with the sequences. They're hints of it but it feels like they purposefully hold back in fear of losing people which sadly didn't work.
I agree that they should have gone zanier. I disagree that it all rests on the director’s lack of musical experience. Spielberg doesn’t have a theatre background, yet directs incredible musical numbers. Same for Tim Burton. I’d say it’s more a lack of understanding of what makes a good musical number. Emotion, progression, and tone. Joker 2´s songs have none.
yeah but with the setup of the seriousness of the first joker, something like this wouldn’t get made. or would at the very least have a difficult time getting funding. just such a leap from what made the first one successful
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
Read somewhere that it's cause this Joker wouldn't be able to sing so why be unrealistic yknow... expect no nobody wants to listen to a serious musical with bad singers
The trend in Hollywood for the last 10 years has been making the character learn the same lesson in the second movie that they learned in the first one and it’s been pissing me off for a long time now. They did that with Thor in love and thunder, They did it with Wade in ready player two… they did it here with Joker. It’s like they continue the story from the first one without any of the character development.
@@Masterhitman935 There was a book that was definitely written after the movie with the intent of pitching as a potential sequel. It tried really hard to "deconstruct" the first book's plot by retroactively portraying the dead Oasis creator guy as a yandere towards his friend's wife, and its attempts at self-reflection completely fell flat on its face because it just circles the same issues the first book tried to explore. Ernest Cline also has a bad habit of verbally disparaging sexism, racism, and transphobia through Wade as an author avatar as though he's trying desperately to sound like he has become more progressive since RP1, but it's all futile because his writing only ends up succumbing to the same bigotries he pays lip-service to. It's real bad.
@@master-of-mind5881 I think what they meant is that in a good musical the songs serve a purpose in the context of the story (e.g. character or plot development) so understanding what they are singing about is kinda important. But the songs in Joker 2 were so pointless they didn't even bothered with translating the songs for the subtitles.
Another of those movies that tries to be several things and does none of them well and ends up nothing. It's a bad musical, a bad sequel, a bad comic book movie, a bad drama, a bad movie in every regard
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
I really get excited about the idea of doing a musical. The mental health imagination/delusion + Joker in related to performance + R rated + Lady Gaga, it could have work really well. Kudos to marketing team though, they really sold the movie.
Same, I wasn't even big on the first one (it was fine) but when I heard the sequel would be a musical I was so excited to see them get experimental with it. Really wish they could've pulled it off better
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
Shoutout to henry for pulling footage from the live at royal albert hall version of phantom rather than the inferior joel schumacher movie. We see you and we thank you sir.
i saw this comment before seeing the clip and was skeptical. but like. goddamn i had only seen the movie version but i SIMPLY must see the theater version in its entirety now
I do write as a hobby recently and thanks to his and a lot of other channel's breakdowns, I can at least try to avoid these problems. I'm not saying that I avoid them but I try to make them minimal and thus my stories more enjoyable
This might be the first time the anti-musical crowd and the musical fanatics actually agreed that singing made the story worse. It's almost impressive (if it didn't suck so bad).
I watched Joker 2 in an empty theater and the only joy I got from this movie was when Harley shot Joker in the chest to cut off his singing, which I was completely in favor of. What an incredibly joyless and pointless movie, and the musical numbers are just the icing on the cake.
I still remember Joker singing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells" to this day from when I watched that episode of BTAS when I was a kid, so Joker singing would definitely work
I distinctly remember being so excited for this movie as Joker is one of my favorite movies ever, period, full stop. And I am also a MASSIVE musical theatre nerd, having done it myself for 8 years as well. I was actually interested to see the combination come to life And yet, for the first time in my ENTIRE musical career, by the 1.5 hour mark, I actually said OUT LOUD, "Oh my fucking god, are they seriously singing again???" The fact I had to ask that and I was just so over it by song, like, 5 or 6 and it just kept going was just a clear sign that I wasn't watching a musical. I was watching a Joker Law and Order episode with musical commercial breaks. And then it wasn't even worth it in the end!
I honestly loved it, I’m curious, do you know any other people into musicals that loved the movie? Cuz I really want a perspective of people who already in love with musicals. I want their pov of this movie. All the hate I see is people who did not like that they went into singing. I honestly like the singing. The story was different from all the jokers so i think that’s why so many people hate it. I love that it was mainly in court and in jail because he shot Murray on live tv.
@@alberto.jaramillo Most people I know who are musical theatre enthusists AND participants, as in worked in musical theatre, could not stand this movie. The inability to market the movie as a musical already brought an unsuspecting audience into a different movie than what was presented. So I get people being upset about that (I would be too). But I went in knowing it was a musical and STILL hated it. Like the video said, most the songs could be completely cut and nothing would be lost. The message of the majority of the songs are repeated over and over, leading to what is basically padding. And also mentioned is that the musical numbers literally stop the entire story just to take place. It's a hard pause whenever they start singing, for the most part, and you're forced to sit through it just to get back to the point. At least Les Mis has songs that took you from Point A to Point B. Phantom used every song to dive deeper into character psyche, grief, fear, even anger. You'd be hard-pressed to say even the weakest song of Wicked (Sentimental Man) is wholly pointless as it establishes the Wizard's charm and false sense of sympathy, i.e. his attempt to appear far more unassuming than we later realize him to be. Joker sings about how much 2 people love each other to the point you're watching that one high school couple making out in the hallway blocking everyone who just wanted to get to class and always expressing their undying devotion despite only dating for like a week. No one liked them then and seeing it as a movie, unironically, is painful. And even as a movie, without all the singing, it is FAR weaker than the first. Taking place in only 2 primary locations where the first movie took you through and around Gothom. Being confined to just the jail and courthouse became suffocating as well as boring, especially since neither setting is much to look at. From a character POV, that would work, but boring your audience goes against the point of telling a story. And Harley is such a non-character compared to her counterparts. You could replace her with literally any one or anything and nothing about the plot would change. She's just there and not even engaging. I forget most every scene she was in despite her being in the majority of them Yes, it's a different take on the Joker's story, but different doesn't always means good or better. It was a good idea with piss-poor execution.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@@alberto.jaramillo I went into this movie with my love of musicals while also being an aware before watching that is is a musical (which alot of people were not prepared for when they first saw it). I can honestly say that this is a bad musical and a bad movie. Joaquin Phoenix is an amazing actor in it and Lady Gaga did awesome as Harley and she sang great, however every time after the first two songs I had to skip through some parts of the songs because they were so long and repetitive. I hardly ever fast forward and doing so in a musical, it should be impossible to follow in the plot. However because the songs added nothing but a chance to hear Lady Gaga sing, I was still able to know exactly what happened when I happened to skip minutes worth of songs that should’ve added to the plot or something important in character development.
i mean it's got incredible melodical storyterlling, with stress on melody, but the lyrics in every song are soooooo forgettable. i would barely call that movie a musical, there are only like five songs
@@burrito345 bruh for me the lyrics aren’t forgettable they add more depth to the story like City of Stars, Audition (The Fools Who Dream) and the opening scene and it has way more than 5 songs bruh
I actually really enjoyed the movie, most hate from what I've seen is either "ew musical" and "expected joker and harley doing crime and winnig and they being bad the movie"
@@wengoszmleczny2802 False expectations really hurt the movie. I saw people seriously criticizing the movie for Joker being a loser. Like that wasn't the entire point of the first movie. They say Joker didn't grow as a character and I wonder if we even saw the same movie. The musical segments sounded mostly awful and the story felt underprepared, but the movie isn't half as bad as people say. It had interesting ideas and something it wanted to say. That alone satisfied me, though I understand I'm in something of a minority in that.
@@oonkymppa5923the worst thing to happen to the joker movies, is them being named joker, tho I just don't get it, if you watch the first film, how do you expect him to do any joker like shenanigans, he didn't accept the joker persona, he got forced into it by everyone around him so of course a movie about him rejecting that character is a good idea, the movie isn't excellent but it's actually pretty good if you have a working brain and don't attach unrealistic expectations to something, expecting Todd Philips Joker to be a comic Joker is like expecting the new age Fast and Furious movies be about street racing, because both things have strayed far far away from the source material (or prequels)
@@oonkymppa5923like this channel also mention, this movie keep going "Remember how this happen in Joker 1, well you're wrong about that". This movie hate the audience, hate the pop-culture it had made, and just hate itself
In the defence of mamma Mia,,, “I’ve been cheated by you” is not ”you cheated on me”,, Sam (Pierce Brosnan) did cheat Donna (Maryl Streep) when they first met by leading her on, falling in love, whilst he was already engaged to someone else,, (its basically one half of the plot in the sequel but it’s also talked about in the first one) so like,, Sam didn’t cheat *on* her but he did *cheat* her The song is about a couple that’s all back and fourth,, on-again-off-again,, it can thinly be connected to the Sam-Donna relationship but not really with any of the other dudes🤷🏼♀️ Anyway,,, I really like mamma Mia lol
This movie's biggest sin is that it reinforces the idea that musicals are low-rent, second-rate, inferior forms of art. It will be the eternal reference for millions to disregard musicals because 'Member Joker 2?'. Thankfully, Wicked seems to be doing well.
I haven’t seen the joker 2 but the clips you showed seemed to suggest that Harley *didn’t* love him. She loved the status of him (‘at the top’) and while he sang of love looking at her, she was looking away at the audience like she was searching for her next ‘at the top’ love…
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
Why are these people allowed to have these budgets? We learned that the new star wars didn't have a _plan_ or a _plot_ before they were written and just... _why_ is this allowed when there are so many creative people out there who would give it a genuine go.
Because those movies were intended as cash grabs. It's why Disney is also doing live action shot for shot remakes: they're not subscribing to the idea of a movie as an art medium people are passionate about, its a corp tossing a sequel to a writing team thinking that brand recognition/nostalgia will have people show up
Because we have a clique of talentless donkeys calling the shots and actually passionate fans/directors aren’t allowed to do anything while they’re around.
Arrogance, greed. So many artists let their egos grow too big tempted by money and more control, only to waste it on things taht feel very clear are doing this out of spite And all of that is only making it so artists get less freedom because of the actions of such directors
I actually like the moment when Arthur begged Lee to stop singing. It was a nice bit of irony that she used what once brought them together, to push him away.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
I wished they used the music as a way he was loosing his mind or something like that. So it could happen at anytime but the audience would know it's cause he loosing himself more and more
5:55 You know how in "The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals", on a plot level, every song in it is the villain song because the musical itself is the villain, but they manage to get around the monotony of that by having them still be songs that serve different purposes, such as an "I Want" song, a lament, a comedy, reprises, and yes, even love songs? Joker 2's creative endeavors begin and end with "Joker and Harley are in love", and not wanting to explore those themes in musical form any further than that. Which honestly feels extremely lazy, because even in musicals whose main plot is about two characters being in love, they still explore many different concepts outside of that central one. Hell, High School Musical even does this better. And I think the reason why the musical numbers are so limited in scope in Joker 2 is because they are only done from the perceptive of our two lead characters; Arthur and Harley. And that's because Todd's creative vision was that the reason only those two characters have non-diegetic musical numbers is because they're crazy. So since a large number of the characters in the movie aren't crazy, they don't get musical numbers that offer up different perceptives. So we're stuck with Arthur and Harley, whose only perceptives are "gosh, isn't it swell to be in love with someone that just gets you?". The story has nothing to work with because it refuses to give any other plot.
That's why people who enjoy musicals understand that the music is part of the storytelling devices. It's meant to move the story along, not stop it dead in it's track. You're suppose to learn something from the songs. The songs shouldn't halt the show/movie dead in its tracks. That's why it sort of annoys me when people who say they hate musicals start to tune out during the songs. They view the music as decorations when it's apart of the story. If you ignore the music you might as be ignoring the dialogue.
There’s a lecture with Howard Ashman where he echoes your point. You put the songs into moments where the characters are so overwhelmed by emotion that they have to sing.
The audience when Joker 2 was announced: "Why?" The audience when Joker 2 was announced as a juke-box musical: "Why?" The audience after seeing Joker 2 "Why?"
Honestly I'm tired of director's not sticking to Source material, they could have done it where him and Harley are doing crazy acts of crime while singing a little bit at a time to each other. As well as made it where while in prison Joker started studying how to make gadgets and start studying how to make his gas and starts getting healthier and stronger so by the time they introduced Batman he actually can put up a fight this frail version of Joker is honestly a bad idea long-term.
Too many people saying, “Joker 2 is a hidden masterpiece that people will realize only years later and start talking about it!” No mf. The only people who will talk about it are the “loud minority” who tricked themselves into thinking it was good from the beginning and everyone else would have forgotten about it already.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@ I think the hate stems from the major shift from the first movie. Alot of people liked the first movie cause, even though Arthur was pathetic, he was able to get pay back on a few people that wronged him and it was cathartic to see. Some people just like a basic underdog/revenge story. In this movie he was just pathetic most of the time with no pay off. It was a misery to watch. I get wanting to make a tragic, artsy movie with a realistic and bad ending, but don’t do it with the Joker. He’s supposed to be a fun character to watch. It’s obvious Arthur isn’t the joker and I liked the idea that he was inspiration for the Joker, but I wish they focused more on the guy who killed him( who was supposedly the real joker). They could’ve shown his relationship with Arthur and how it changed from admiration to disdain, but no, they focused on a pointless love with a Harley Quinn character, who isn’t even Harley Quinn. There was just no pay off for me, but I’m glad you were able to find enjoyment from it.
@ if you haven’t seen it already, I recommend The Substance cause that movie focuses a lot on themes, social commentary and visual storytelling, and I would put it in my top 5 movies this year. It’s pretty gory though so if you’re not into that then probably skip it haha.
Joker 2 ruined the way I saw the first Joker movie. Just the idea, that a movie director re-doing everything, basically hating on his OWN movie is ridicules.
@@aeroallergen It makes you look insecure and pathetic. To have so little appreciation for your own work that you'll willingly trash it and spend hundreds of millions of dollars just to show up the 'wrong' crowd that enjoyed it the wrong way. The whole thing feels petty and unpleasant, it's like watching a snide, haughty, holier-than-thou artiste go on a temper tantrum.
@@aeroallergenit's mostly like... why waste time making something you hate? It was clearly not for the money save for ruining the bottom line of the folks who hired him again. The whole thing is just so weirdly spiteful. If you wanted to lambast the Incels there were more interesting ways to do it than 2 hours of a below average courtroom drama. Imagine if instead he got to lead a gang but, like, incredibly incompetently. That'd make for great dark humor if done right
the issue is doing only mostly haooy love songs. the story is also a court drama, what about some songs about being a criminal? the country genre 's full of those. What about songs about mental illness, since it's also a major theme? you can crib from everyone from Nina Simone to PinkFloyd. It's about an unhealthy relationship, there are many expressive songs about toxic love, it's Taylor Swift's bread and butter, and the same goes for nick cave and Alice Cooper. I'm sure people who have actual knowledge of musicals from the 30's to the 60's could find all of those kinds of songs to better fit the story and be used to actually progress the plot.
18:53 in the stage musical it’s made clear she’s singing specifically about Sam, who did cheat on her. So the song does make a lot more sense within the story, unlike pretty much all of the songs in Joker: Folie a Deux.
An example of how good musical films utilize each of their numbers to do something important: Beauty and the Beast: Belle: Establishes village setting, introduces protagonist and motivation, introduces villain and villain sidekick Be Our Guest: Establishes Castle setting, multiple important side characters Something There: Advances romance between protagonist and love interest Beauty and the Beast: Culminates romance Gaston: Delves in villain’s motivation and character Mob Song: Moves plot forward by introducing threat of a mob attacking the castle Or… Camelot (1967) Song 1: Introduces lead, establishes beginning situation & his perspective Song 2: Establishes second lead, offers her perspective Song 3: Establishes importance of central location/idea of the musical through a simple leitmotif that will repeat throughout Song 4: Establishes third lead and characterizes him strongly And so on
Honestly I think the bigger problem here is there was no plot. What happened really? Arthur meets Harley and goes to trial. Ok and? They tell us about the support he has outside but we never see it until that bomb that feels random and out of place, they make a point this is one of the first televised cases only to never talk about it again, we don’t really get to meet Harley and her true motivations, and so on. Musical or not it doesn’t matter, there was nothing to tell either way.
Apparently Joker was so popular people who worked on the news got paranoid someone would blow their brains out like that one guy near the end of the movie, and people who went to the movies during the time of Joker's release were actually searched just in case. So a theory I have is that when a sequel was announced, the writers were bribed to make it complete garbage.
I still can't wrap my head around creative writers and directors looking at their extremely popular and acclaimed works and instead of giving the audience more of what they liked, they do what's akin to swerving a car as hard as you can onto a path nobody asked for, completely ignoring the path blatantly ahead of them.
I agree. But, I also feel like we’d critique them for ‘playing it safe’ if they hadn’t. It’s like a tightrope of ‘try new things, but by god you’d better get it right!!’ 😅
@@jelyfisherIt was so incredibly bad, and I already didn't like Infinity War which I was so excited for. I went to see Endgame alone because my boyfriend didn't want to keep me company and my oh my was that a waste of my money and my bag of snacks 😅 I was just a big question mark, wondering why every decision they had made was so far from being a part of an actual story to tell.
In fact we’ve seen over and over how important the musical numbers are to the flesh of a movie on the Disney live action adaptations. One of the things that brought down the Mulan adaption was cutting out the musical numbers and not replacing them with anything.
I think of "I am Moana" and the pivotal role it played in expressing Moana's victory over self-doubt, and I get what you are saying. Even with her achievements, Moana had reached her lowest point and was ready to give up on her quest. Overcoming that could not have been expressed in mere words.
As someone who hates musicals: I just wanna say that there was not a single moment during the run time of this movie that I was not dreading the next musical number.
4:18 this is a take I disagree with and feels like has emerged as a result of the Tumblr musical boom. Older musicals, including film musicals would often have a couple of spetacle songs that didn't really serve a purpose. I can think of White Christmas where they have the Choreography song that- literally does nothing in that film and does not tie in. That doesn't mean a musical should be filled with nonsense unless the point is to be a spectacle musical, but the idea that you have to have a number serve a purpose and you can't have one exist to just be a pretty song with pretty visuals is not a take I agree with. Joker's still a bad musical.
In general I think it's underrated having a scene for the sake of it rather than everything serving twenty different purposes. I think these people's heads would explode if they saw anything from David Lynch
You could argue that "entertaining the audience" *is* a purpose. If it's a sluggish point in the story and you need to perk them up and get them re-invested and excited for example, or hit them out of the gate with spectacle, or if your cast or crew have particular skills you want to show off. Whereas "because I want to make a musical, so I need musical numbers" is genuinely not a valid reason.
@pseudonymous9153 In the video the purpose the essayist is referring to is being character or story driven. We seem to agree that's not true and you can have a song exist for the purpose of entertainment, and even an entire musical built around just that. A lot of Jukebox musicals are just songs the creator liked tied together with thinly strung plots that were never meant to be all that important. It's a take I dislike because it ignores the fact that when you go to a musical you're going for- the music? In many, like Cats for example, the plot is really not as important as the songs and that's okay. Even in ones where it is important, as long as it's used in an appropriate place and the story doesn't come to a sudden stop for no reason, having a spectacle song is perfectly okay. It's all about execution at the end of the day.
Can we please get an analysis on the pitch perfect trilogy? I didn't realize any of that about the music and thought it was really interesting and want to hear more
I actually do agree with the statement that giving the Joker a musical was not a bad idea. In fact, before most of the details of this movie started getting out, I was really in favor of the idea. After all, the Joker has done musical numbers in the past, and it's only natural for a big, egotistical, crazy character that thrives on spectacle like the Joker to have a story told through one of the most spectacle driven genres in history; a musical. Trouble is, Todd Phillips doesn't really understand what makes musicals good. Like, the only other musical movie he directed at that point was "A Star is Born", which was a remake of a remake of a remake. It's kind of hard to fuck up a musical when it's already been done for you three times. But when it comes to original works, surprise surprise, the guy that made the Hangover Trilogy and the most overrated story about psychology I've ever seen didn't really do a good job making his first original musical. The other problem is that I didn't want this version of the Joker to have a musical, because he honestly was never the Joker to me. Hell, he isn't even actually the Joker in his own movies. So not only is it a wasted concept because it's applied to the tamest, least chaotic version of the character, but also just not actually the character we give a shit about. It's about the guy that somehow inspires the guy we would actually like to see a movie and/or musical for. The final nail in the coffin for this movie was hammered in as soon as I heard that it was going to be a jukebox musical with only one original song. It's not that jukebox musicals can't be good, because there are definitely plenty of good ones. But they run the risk of not being completely as connected to the story and emotional beats as fully original songs do. Some of the better jukebox musicals out there can avoid this by just planning the play around the songs and constructing a story from that. Even better if all the songs are from a single artist or band, since that way, they can get a similar frame of reference for all the songs rather than trying to find songs from multiple different artists that might relate to each other. It worked great in Across the Universe with them using Beatles songs.....less so in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but that's mostly because they were trying to force Beatles songs to work with the movie rather than have the movie work with the Beatles songs. In the case of Joker 2, it feels more like they found songs from all over the place that kind of fit what they wanted to go for with the story, but it wasn't a perfect fit.
They probably made it a jukebox musical thinking making original ones would be harder. Plus, the originaloved ocasionally player popular songs of the time.
I think an interesting phenomenon is that some auteur director types are now trying to turn to musicals, with them gaining some respect after years of being looked down on, but they are totally unwilling to work with, and therefore cede some creative control to, composers and lyricists who genuinely know what they're doing. The mindset of an screenwriter-director is so different from a musical bookwriter, who is said to do half the work for a third of the money, a tenth of the credit, and all of the blame. The rejection of collaboration has led to lots of the bad movie musicals we've seen
@@TheCloserLook Jokes aside from my SUBJECTIVE opinion you are the best reviewer on any platform and I watch a lot. Maybe only second to Pitch Meeting.
6:10 love how the point is that all the love songs say the same thing, but then shows a clip that clearly is subverting the idea of their relationship. Nice attention to detail.
You know a major problem with Jukebox Musicals now, too? We can listen to these songs whenever we want. Spotify, UA-cam, Streaming, order a CD online, you name it. The world is your oyster for music. That ability to listen to what you want, whenever you want, is relatively new. It wasn't always like that: I remember my mom, not too many years ago, tuning in to watch just the opening of Top Gun anytime it was on TV just so she could hear Danger Zone and then she'd turn it off because she couldn't care less about the movie itself. Back then, sitting through Mamma Mia! to hear some ABBA songs, or hell watching Maximum Overdrive for the AC/DC songs, was one of the more convenient ways to hear a bunch of music you'd like and sitting through a plot you couldn't care less about was small price to pay, so Jukebox Musicals as a concept made more sense and had a wider audience. Nowadays, since you can just google any song you want, the only draw for a musical is if it has original songs that are tailored to the plot, or if it uses the jukebox-style music in an exceptionally good way.
The beginning of the video reminds me of Cosmonauts statement: "I really hate when people say. What was even the point of that movie?. It is such a non statement. What is the point of any movie? But when I came out of the theatre after seeing Joker 2, I said. What was even the point of that movie?"
A just incredible playwright, film maker, and the guy responsible for the Disney renaissance was Howard Ashman. The little mermaid, beauty and the beast were his brain children he was incredible. And his ethos that was how you integrate musical numbers into a script is when you’re so emotional you can’t talk you sing and then when you get more emotional you dance. But if a script makes sense without the song cut it. They have to add, they have to move the story forward in some way. He very sadly died of complications to AIDS before the release of Beauty and the beast and the movie is dedicated to him. He was so important to the film as he got to sick to travel to work on it the entire production moved from London to New York to consult him at his home. The world especially musicals is less bright without him.
The director said he wanted to take a risk. "Risk" implies a possibility of things working OR not working. We praise risk when someone thinks outside the box and still manages to land on their feet. We praise risk when it pays off. Now, certain filmakers like Todd Phillips seem to think that risk itself deserves to be rewarded, and it doesn't. Risk that doesn't pay off doesn't deserve to be praised as if it did pay off. Of course, what works or doesn't work depends on the taste and preferences of each audience member. What "pays off" for me may not pay off for the next guy, but one thing is universal: each person will praise what they like and not praise what they don't like. If a director takes a risk in making a movie, and such movie fails to appeal to most audiences, such director should't expect an A for effort. Risk by itself is not enough.
Great video! I had similar issues with how Joker 2 handled its music myself, so it's nice hearing another person raising these points. One thing I disagree about though is that I'd say "The Joker is Me" is actually one of the songs that can't be cut out. In my opinion, it's the best song of the movie and the only one that fulfills the promise of a "Joker musical". 1. It actually pushes the story forward, showing Arthur's realization that his lawyer's defense is humiliating him, and him deciding to take up his Joker persona again (whether that was a plot point the movie should have had in the first place is a different discussion). 2. It takes advantage of the "unreality" of having a musical number. It might be all in Arthur's head (the way the songs are portrayed as being in the characters' heads in something like Chicago), but it lets production have fun and be creative. Joker singing while killing the prosecutor and shooting at the jury is exactly what I imagined when I first heard Joker 2 would be a musical. The number also reveals some information about Arthur's thoughts that isn't told to us before. It might be on the nose, but it shows you his hatred of the judge and jury and his other psychotic thoughts. 3. While Joaquim can sing (see Walk the Line), it's one of the only songs that benefits from the "purposely realistic" (ie. purposely bad) singing the movie chooses to have its characters do. It being a more energetic and angry song makes it more acceptable when he's out of tune or stops singing to yell his lines. The energy and tone covers up issues with the performance, as opposed to a slower love song where the issues with the singing are more noticeable. This is something you find done even in good musicals too. Take King Herod's Song from Jesus Christ Superstar. In the 1973 version, Herod stops singing and essentially speaks the end of the song to show his anger, and in the 2000 version, it allows Herod to be played by Rik Mayall, who isn't a great singer, without it being a problem. Something like a patter song like "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from Pirates of Penzance would another example, as performing that song well requires less on singing ability, and more being able to speak very fast.
They totally couldve had arthur sing well. Hell, id say it wouldve been the RIGHT choice, because they could make it a callback to the first movie with arthur fantasizing about his comedy doing well. Ok top of that, it could make a great moment of levity, or a bit of a change of pace at least if during one of the heavier songs (assuming they wrote more songs about literally any other aspect of arthur than new love, which they didnt), the scene cuts to arthur along on the same stage he bombed the comedy routine on, and theres just empty seats. Arthur would finish off the song songing horribly, a stark contrast to the singing in the fantasy. They had everything lined up to give Phoenix free reign for singing, but they chose to fumble it
I felt like Arthur should've sang "for once in my life" directly to Lee in music class. Like if we got more scenes of them interacting in music class or and building the romance more or something and then he sings and dances with her while singing that song.
I think this would’ve been better received with fewer songs and every song would need to be either on old Vaudeville number or entirely original but written in that old, showy style. The numbers could ramp up more closer to the end and the imaginary sets would get bigger and more lavish; Joker’s singing in the first song could be all his own voice but as the film progresses, there’s less and less of him in each song, instead we would hear classic covers by recognizable singers or at least approximations, all to show in a fun and subtle way how he’s losing his grip on reality until it ends in a huge production with dancing and singing and costume changes and all that juxtaposed with him dying. So much potential.
2:43 That can't happen when the director hates the comic books and their movies and thinks superhero movies "are not real movies" while seeing himself and his garbage creations as something above them🙄
I agree with pretty much everything you said about Joker, you have great takes! HOWEVER...I have to disagree with what you said about Mamma Mia You said that Donna sang about being cheated on by one of her old lovers, even though she never was...but the thing is that, she absolutely was cheated on. At the end of the film, and during the sequel, it's established that when Sam met Donna, he already had a girl back home. He was cheating on this girl with Donna, and therefore, cheating on Donna with the girl too. Also, regarding what you said about Donna singing about one man despite having three lovers: I at least interpret it as her thinking exclusively of Sam while singing Mamma Mia. I believe that despite his cheating, she always had feelings for him, and only him. She cared about Bill and Harry, but she saw Sam as "the one that got away". When you take all of this into consideration, this song fits in perfectly and seamlessly into the story in my opinion. But anyway, despite everything I said...this was a really good video, good job!
I personally love the term Objective. I dislike people misusing it. That is an important distinction. Similarly, I dislike people abusing the term Subjectively as some sort of catch-all escape to try and suggest an objective view but a means of escaping any counter argument by veiling themselves under the excuse that it is entirely subjective and therefore cannot be argued. But I can understand your annoyance, it is just a matter of people being unable to properly explain themselves, or to maintain a proper objective standard to make proper use of the term Objectively.
I feel like one of the (many) things that would've made this movie better would've been following Harley and her perception of who Joker is. Making her the main character gives you something fresh to say, and you don't have to regress Arthur.
I wonder why Gaga didn't help this time 🤔 She was so much of a muse in "a star was born" that I had high hopes that she might bring in her talent and experience on to this as well... but she simply played her designated part like any other actor would've done. Somewhat weird
I watched a lot of reviews that just went "Joker 2 bad" without any explanation of their opinions. Even though I mostly strongly disagree with you it was at least nice to see someone properly express their opinion about a topic instead of just going "thing bad" and then listing things they didn't like about it with no reasoning. I never caught onto how many of the songs were about the two being in love. 12 out of 13 is definitely not ideal but it's not like those were all exactly the same. It's a different song now, it's a different situation, they did different things, some of them pretty weird, yet they still love each other. Until they don't. Creating a parallel to a previous moment by repeating a lot of it in order to highlight what changed and what stayed the same is a very often used and very effective tool in storytelling. They probably didn't need all 12 songs to be about the same thing but on the merit of repeat information alone I don't see how that's a bad thing. I agree that songs telling us things we already know isn't all that good in a musical but I don't think this is supposed to be your regular musical. For most of the songs I took it as just someone singing songs. Playing pretend and trying to make their life a musical without it actually being one. They're gonna take songs that already exist and work them in best they can. I've done that dozens of times. Them making Pheonix and Lady Gaga sing bad on purpose makes a lot more sense if you view it that way. On some level it's just two people singing stupid songs because they feel like it and I kinda love that. I think Joker 2 was great. No, I don't want a 3rd movie either but I'm happy Joker 2 exists. I just hope big shot producers don't take this as a proof of people hating musicals....
I loved the Pitch Perfect Ted talk in the middle. Please do a serperate video about it, even if it's just a 2 minute April fool's video, I'd watch it like 1000 times! There were a good 3 months in my life where I watched Pitch Perfect every day, and I feel so validated now!
I don’t even think the musical angle was a bad idea. You could actually do something really interesting with it if you play your cards right. Unfortunately not only are the songs bad, they do nothing to enhance what’s going on in the story, which is what songs in a musical are SUPPOSED to do.
My personal favorite jukebox musical movie is Rocketman cuz, well, it's Elton John songs in an Elton John biopic with Mr. Elton John himself still alive to give input 😂 Can't get a better formula than that
22:11 It’s strange that they actually did this for That’s Entertainment. The first couple time it’s ’everything that happens in life yada yada’ but in the final reprise at the end it’s ’A show that is really a show, sends you out with a kind of a glow, and you’ll say as you go on your way, that’s entertainment.’
2:36.... I don't know if advertisement placements will be the same for everyone watching the same video But either way for me it was a perfect advertisement placement Joker was singing something And then a fast food advertisement came on where they were doing some overtime singing number I think it was burger king maybe LOL but it was just perfectly timed And I'm just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that?? Or this thing in general??
(Opening the video with a response) To answer the question as a fan of musicals and someone who adores Chicago: they failed the Howard Ashman rule. Characters speak until they feel too much, then sing until that's also not enough, then finally they dance AND sing... all to progress the plot so we know how crucial those feelings are as motivation. Joker 2 threw random singing bits in and they did nothing.
Thank you! I said this to my friends after the movie, a musical's scores are supposed to develop the plot/characters motives and engage the audience. The Joker 2's musical numbers failed at this horribly which made it easy to disengage when on screen.
it makes me think about how the movie "Emilia Pérez" was told through a musical, which sounds incredibly weird given it's a gangster movie, but it works wonderfully well. Every musical part of the story becomes the focal point of each chapter, the introduction and/or the conclusion. i'd love to see someone do an analysis of this movie
Thank you for the point of "saying things in a roundabout way is a trait of a bad musical". My boyfriend took me to a local musical performance. I was so bored watching it, even though I usually enjoy musicals. I was analyzing why it was so boring and couldn't pinpoint what went wrong. Why, for example, I totally love "Heathers" as a musical and not this one. Now I get it: the songs were so long and convoluted that I couldn't even grasp what was going on. They were trying to explain their characters and move the plot, but it was going at such a pace and in such a confusing manner that I couldn't help but fall asleep.
I was one of the few people who supported the idea of a Joker musical.... then the film came out and I regretted my support... The music felt so well incorporated in the first, they talked a lot about how his character had music constantly playing in his head. So I thought escalating to a musical makes sense... but the VAST majority of the music in the film should have been original, complementing how incredible the OST was for the first Joker. I do think that it could be okay to have a couple of jukebox moments but yeeeeeaaaah... no...
I'd just like to say thank you so much for helping me make The Closer Look my job.
Its hit me recently how lucky I am to be doing this. I don't expect to do this forever. I've had a few poor performing videos lately, but honestly I'm happy about that. They've made me rethink my entire mindset around creation and I'm coming back at it with a fire in me.
I'll never take my position, or your attention for granted. Here's to many more years of winging about movies!
Also, I tried a more comedic, personality driven style with this video. Let me know if you prefer it to my usual, more objective (shudders at the word) approach.
❤️Love your stuff
I love you
Comedic approach is good for trashy or campy movies like this so keep it for that!
shit that sucks, I love your videos
I really enjoy your videos. they have helped me identify why I feel the way about movies that I do and have helped me explain my opinons on said movies much better. 👍
I don't have a problem with jukebox musicals as a genre but there's a right way and a wrong way to use licensed songs to tell a story and this is clearly the wrong way.
Yeah, they're hard to do, but can still be great.
The last Trolls movie was an enjoyable one, the previous ones not so much
I'm thinking of when George Lucas made that mistake with Strange Magic. The songs were definitely the worst part of the film.
Moulin Rouge is still the best Jukebox musical.
@@SaraShea-qf1gy
I’m admittedly not well versed in the technical critique of musicals.
That being said I unironically liked the songs in Strange Magic.
What about them seemed like poor choices for the movie?
I think Shrek 2 is a really good example of a good jukebox musical. There is a reason why people think of Shrek when they hear "I need a hero" more than the musical the song came from
Shrek is similair concept to the game he mentioned in the video, alternate world, and theyre even in alternaive version of hollywood
Shrek universe generally does great job of using fairytale characters in very unique ways, referencing pop culture while still being original
Does it... does it come from a musical???
@callmeblue2121I think it's from footloose
This might sound silly, but to this day, no musical number moves me and makes me feel something quite like "i need a hero" - i legit choke up with tears of joy nowdays
Ironically for me that song is forever tied to Short Circuit 2. Not that Shrek misused it. But Short Circuit used it for a very dire, stressful part of the movie and it's all I see when I hear it.
As someone who loves musicals I’m so glad to find a critique of this movie that isn’t simply “musical, bad.” A joker musical could’ve been awesome
That's what I thought when I first heard it was going to be a musical! It could have been quite gruesome in it's satire, but, no, we had to "own the chuds"...🙄
People who hate musicals are so lame lol. Music is great, movies are great. What's the big deal merging them from time to time?
I mean, it's not like there isn't a huge overlap in Joker fans and Joss Whedon, Family Guy, and South Park fans. They all love musicals.
We have something close, which is Chicago, a movie-musical about a murderer who wants to use all the attention and publicity their murder brought to make it big in the entertainment industry.
I think its more realistic psychologically musical. Cuz believe or not, as someone whos not healthy mentally, i LOVE this movie. Reality is harsh, sometimes its entertaining sometimes its not. Sometimes its tragedy sometimes its comedy. Sometimes its happy sometimes its sad. LIFE IS CONFUSING AND CRAZY.
I’ve watched several reviews of Joker 2, but this is the first one that actually articulates why it doesn’t work-the songs being repetitive and failing to move the story foremost among them. I completely agree that a musical might work in concept, but the execution here is abysmal.
Thanks!
Agreed. So many fake experts on the internet with their surface-level critiques. So few people actually have the skill to examine and then articulate the inner workings of films or video games.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
I also actually love a lot of the ideas of the story- showing the fault of lee's ideology first among them, though i wish they'd used punchline (you know, the one who actually acts like that) rather then Harley who's abused into a torturous relationship in pretty much all forms of her origin.
If the plan for the plot was always to a) be a jukebox musical and b) have the songs be exaggerated, fantasy manifestations of Joker and Harley's feelings they should have, frankly, gone weirder. Be Moulin Rouge, and then like Moulin Rouge escalate from comedy to drama when tragedy strikes at the end. You could even do the Moulin Rouge thing where the exaggerated tone is explained in-universe as the main character telling a story.
I think the thing is Baz Luhrmann can do it because he has a theatre background. Meanwhile, Todd Phillips has the Hangover movies
I do wish they had gone a little crazier with the sequences. They're hints of it but it feels like they purposefully hold back in fear of losing people which sadly didn't work.
I agree that they should have gone zanier. I disagree that it all rests on the director’s lack of musical experience. Spielberg doesn’t have a theatre background, yet directs incredible musical numbers. Same for Tim Burton. I’d say it’s more a lack of understanding of what makes a good musical number. Emotion, progression, and tone. Joker 2´s songs have none.
yeah but with the setup of the seriousness of the first joker, something like this wouldn’t get made. or would at the very least have a difficult time getting funding. just such a leap from what made the first one successful
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@@master-of-mind5881this post feels AI written to me and when I look at the comment history, you posted this verbatim twice in different threads.
What’s worst is that Joaquin Phoenix CAN sing. Why on Earth did he perform like that?! Surely he could’ve done better :/
Read somewhere that it's cause this Joker wouldn't be able to sing so why be unrealistic yknow... expect no nobody wants to listen to a serious musical with bad singers
@ Interesting… what a daft decision, if that’s the case 😅
Phoenix singing are the best parts of this movie.Especially 'The Joker Is Me'
Fr like how to do you get from playing Johnny Cash to this? 😂
Did you see Napoleon? He can't be trusted to do anything.
He's doing Sharknado 9 next
The trend in Hollywood for the last 10 years has been making the character learn the same lesson in the second movie that they learned in the first one and it’s been pissing me off for a long time now. They did that with Thor in love and thunder, They did it with Wade in ready player two… they did it here with Joker. It’s like they continue the story from the first one without any of the character development.
Since when there is a “ready player 2” unless it the books?
@@Masterhitman935 There was a book that was definitely written after the movie with the intent of pitching as a potential sequel. It tried really hard to "deconstruct" the first book's plot by retroactively portraying the dead Oasis creator guy as a yandere towards his friend's wife, and its attempts at self-reflection completely fell flat on its face because it just circles the same issues the first book tried to explore. Ernest Cline also has a bad habit of verbally disparaging sexism, racism, and transphobia through Wade as an author avatar as though he's trying desperately to sound like he has become more progressive since RP1, but it's all futile because his writing only ends up succumbing to the same bigotries he pays lip-service to. It's real bad.
They did that with Iron Man after Iron Man 3 too. Yeah it sucks.
And they did it in Gladiator II
There's a ready player 2??
Well thank god I never watched that
I think the objective way to determine that it isnt a musical is that the swedish subtitle people didnt translate any of the songs.
I love the idea that they did that because a) they thought nobody would notice or care, or b) the songs could be summarised by single lines.
There were also no subtitles in Germany. Seems like it was a global decision on Warner’s part.
That’s because Swedish isn’t a real language. It’s just English spoken backwards. Prove me wrong.
I don’t understand???
@@master-of-mind5881 I think what they meant is that in a good musical the songs serve a purpose in the context of the story (e.g. character or plot development) so understanding what they are singing about is kinda important. But the songs in Joker 2 were so pointless they didn't even bothered with translating the songs for the subtitles.
Another of those movies that tries to be several things and does none of them well and ends up nothing. It's a bad musical, a bad sequel, a bad comic book movie, a bad drama, a bad movie in every regard
A bad courtroom drama
But a good fuck you to the execs who demanded a sequel and le incel fans that live in a society. Which I suspect secretly was the directors intention.
a romance with no chemistry
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@master-of-mind5881 I guess the real question is, are these movies about the Joker or are they about Arthur Fleck
I really get excited about the idea of doing a musical. The mental health imagination/delusion + Joker in related to performance + R rated + Lady Gaga, it could have work really well.
Kudos to marketing team though, they really sold the movie.
Same, I wasn't even big on the first one (it was fine) but when I heard the sequel would be a musical I was so excited to see them get experimental with it. Really wish they could've pulled it off better
@@jessaminemanchesterYou are crazy
Yeah ngl I was pretty hyped.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@@master-of-mind5881 One might argue that it is the Metal Gear Solid 2 of our time.
Shoutout to henry for pulling footage from the live at royal albert hall version of phantom rather than the inferior joel schumacher movie. We see you and we thank you sir.
^^^100% this
i saw this comment before seeing the clip and was skeptical. but like. goddamn i had only seen the movie version but i SIMPLY must see the theater version in its entirety now
Undercut by him then using Tom Hooper's abomination for clips.
I don't even write but it's so entertaining to watch him breakdown what made a story great or an absolute dumpster fire
I do write as a hobby recently and thanks to his and a lot of other channel's breakdowns, I can at least try to avoid these problems. I'm not saying that I avoid them but I try to make them minimal and thus my stories more enjoyable
This might be the first time the anti-musical crowd and the musical fanatics actually agreed that singing made the story worse. It's almost impressive (if it didn't suck so bad).
I watched Joker 2 in an empty theater and the only joy I got from this movie was when Harley shot Joker in the chest to cut off his singing, which I was completely in favor of. What an incredibly joyless and pointless movie, and the musical numbers are just the icing on the cake.
My older sister who doesn't like musicals said joker2 was good movie and a good musical. That's when I knew something was up.
She had a stroke i don’t see any other possibilities
Sometimes a billion dollar film doesn't need a sequel that's all I gotta say.
Yeah, say that to money monsters that only care for a meaningless number to grow bigger
@@sambonbon755 So Warner Brothers and Disney?
@@sambonbon755 Well, is not lik rthe director of the movie is completly innocent on this
I still remember Joker singing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells" to this day from when I watched that episode of BTAS when I was a kid, so Joker singing would definitely work
I distinctly remember being so excited for this movie as Joker is one of my favorite movies ever, period, full stop. And I am also a MASSIVE musical theatre nerd, having done it myself for 8 years as well. I was actually interested to see the combination come to life
And yet, for the first time in my ENTIRE musical career, by the 1.5 hour mark, I actually said OUT LOUD, "Oh my fucking god, are they seriously singing again???"
The fact I had to ask that and I was just so over it by song, like, 5 or 6 and it just kept going was just a clear sign that I wasn't watching a musical. I was watching a Joker Law and Order episode with musical commercial breaks. And then it wasn't even worth it in the end!
I honestly loved it, I’m curious, do you know any other people into musicals that loved the movie? Cuz I really want a perspective of people who already in love with musicals. I want their pov of this movie. All the hate I see is people who did not like that they went into singing. I honestly like the singing. The story was different from all the jokers so i think that’s why so many people hate it. I love that it was mainly in court and in jail because he shot Murray on live tv.
@@alberto.jaramillo Most people I know who are musical theatre enthusists AND participants, as in worked in musical theatre, could not stand this movie.
The inability to market the movie as a musical already brought an unsuspecting audience into a different movie than what was presented. So I get people being upset about that (I would be too). But I went in knowing it was a musical and STILL hated it.
Like the video said, most the songs could be completely cut and nothing would be lost. The message of the majority of the songs are repeated over and over, leading to what is basically padding. And also mentioned is that the musical numbers literally stop the entire story just to take place. It's a hard pause whenever they start singing, for the most part, and you're forced to sit through it just to get back to the point. At least Les Mis has songs that took you from Point A to Point B. Phantom used every song to dive deeper into character psyche, grief, fear, even anger. You'd be hard-pressed to say even the weakest song of Wicked (Sentimental Man) is wholly pointless as it establishes the Wizard's charm and false sense of sympathy, i.e. his attempt to appear far more unassuming than we later realize him to be. Joker sings about how much 2 people love each other to the point you're watching that one high school couple making out in the hallway blocking everyone who just wanted to get to class and always expressing their undying devotion despite only dating for like a week. No one liked them then and seeing it as a movie, unironically, is painful.
And even as a movie, without all the singing, it is FAR weaker than the first. Taking place in only 2 primary locations where the first movie took you through and around Gothom. Being confined to just the jail and courthouse became suffocating as well as boring, especially since neither setting is much to look at. From a character POV, that would work, but boring your audience goes against the point of telling a story. And Harley is such a non-character compared to her counterparts. You could replace her with literally any one or anything and nothing about the plot would change. She's just there and not even engaging. I forget most every scene she was in despite her being in the majority of them
Yes, it's a different take on the Joker's story, but different doesn't always means good or better. It was a good idea with piss-poor execution.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@@alberto.jaramillo I went into this movie with my love of musicals while also being an aware before watching that is is a musical (which alot of people were not prepared for when they first saw it). I can honestly say that this is a bad musical and a bad movie. Joaquin Phoenix is an amazing actor in it and Lady Gaga did awesome as Harley and she sang great, however every time after the first two songs I had to skip through some parts of the songs because they were so long and repetitive. I hardly ever fast forward and doing so in a musical, it should be impossible to follow in the plot. However because the songs added nothing but a chance to hear Lady Gaga sing, I was still able to know exactly what happened when I happened to skip minutes worth of songs that should’ve added to the plot or something important in character development.
La La Land is proof you can do a musical that is woven so intricately and beautifully into the story
Only musical I like
@@markp9366 same here bro i liked Wicked too its a great production but not on the level of La La Land
i mean it's got incredible melodical storyterlling, with stress on melody, but the lyrics in every song are soooooo forgettable. i would barely call that movie a musical, there are only like five songs
@@burrito345 bruh for me the lyrics aren’t forgettable they add more depth to the story like City of Stars, Audition (The Fools Who Dream) and the opening scene and it has way more than 5 songs bruh
Was just about to mention La La Land, basically the perfect musical
They knew that the musical aspect would be almost universally despised, so preemptively wrote it into the script.
I actually really enjoyed the movie, most hate from what I've seen is either "ew musical" and "expected joker and harley doing crime and winnig and they being bad the movie"
"You can't call me out if I say it first!"
I hate this whole method.
@@wengoszmleczny2802 False expectations really hurt the movie. I saw people seriously criticizing the movie for Joker being a loser. Like that wasn't the entire point of the first movie. They say Joker didn't grow as a character and I wonder if we even saw the same movie. The musical segments sounded mostly awful and the story felt underprepared, but the movie isn't half as bad as people say. It had interesting ideas and something it wanted to say. That alone satisfied me, though I understand I'm in something of a minority in that.
@@oonkymppa5923the worst thing to happen to the joker movies, is them being named joker, tho I just don't get it, if you watch the first film, how do you expect him to do any joker like shenanigans, he didn't accept the joker persona, he got forced into it by everyone around him so of course a movie about him rejecting that character is a good idea, the movie isn't excellent but it's actually pretty good if you have a working brain and don't attach unrealistic expectations to something, expecting Todd Philips Joker to be a comic Joker is like expecting the new age Fast and Furious movies be about street racing, because both things have strayed far far away from the source material (or prequels)
@@oonkymppa5923like this channel also mention, this movie keep going "Remember how this happen in Joker 1, well you're wrong about that". This movie hate the audience, hate the pop-culture it had made, and just hate itself
My dad told me once, that his sister(my aunt) said, the greatest love songs do not say, "I love you."
damn
I don't know, I think Carson Parks' "Something Stupid" is pretty good
Simp
Thats not true. Plenty of great songs say "i love you" most oldies songs in general say it and there are a lot of masterpieces
@@diegoxavier9107 doesn't say I love you
In the defence of mamma Mia,,, “I’ve been cheated by you” is not ”you cheated on me”,, Sam (Pierce Brosnan) did cheat Donna (Maryl Streep) when they first met by leading her on, falling in love, whilst he was already engaged to someone else,, (its basically one half of the plot in the sequel but it’s also talked about in the first one) so like,, Sam didn’t cheat *on* her but he did *cheat* her
The song is about a couple that’s all back and fourth,, on-again-off-again,, it can thinly be connected to the Sam-Donna relationship but not really with any of the other dudes🤷🏼♀️
Anyway,,, I really like mamma Mia lol
The movie is exactly what the title reads - A joke.
A folly ajew if you will
😂😂😂 love this comment
Hearing you nerd out about Pitch Perfect was great man. Definitely gonna watch it again; it was really good.
This movie's biggest sin is that it reinforces the idea that musicals are low-rent, second-rate, inferior forms of art. It will be the eternal reference for millions to disregard musicals because 'Member Joker 2?'.
Thankfully, Wicked seems to be doing well.
“Ha! Tricked ya, it’s the SAME.” 😂😂 5:40 You even tricked me and I’ve actually seen this film.
I haven’t seen the joker 2 but the clips you showed seemed to suggest that Harley *didn’t* love him. She loved the status of him (‘at the top’) and while he sang of love looking at her, she was looking away at the audience like she was searching for her next ‘at the top’ love…
I didn't see it either but I heard in a review but she bails on him when he renounces being the joker
Pretty much
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@master-of-mind5881 you know what, power to you man.
@@master-of-mind5881 Bait used to be believable
Why are these people allowed to have these budgets? We learned that the new star wars didn't have a _plan_ or a _plot_ before they were written and just... _why_ is this allowed when there are so many creative people out there who would give it a genuine go.
Because those movies were intended as cash grabs. It's why Disney is also doing live action shot for shot remakes: they're not subscribing to the idea of a movie as an art medium people are passionate about, its a corp tossing a sequel to a writing team thinking that brand recognition/nostalgia will have people show up
Because we have a clique of talentless donkeys calling the shots and actually passionate fans/directors aren’t allowed to do anything while they’re around.
Arrogance, greed.
So many artists let their egos grow too big tempted by money and more control, only to waste it on things taht feel very clear are doing this out of spite
And all of that is only making it so artists get less freedom because of the actions of such directors
17:35 And the rooftop dance was taken from Batman 89. Nothing like borrowing from a better movie to prop up your own
I thought the roof top dance was them attempting to copy La La Land
@ La La Land also took it from Batman 89
I actually like the moment when Arthur begged Lee to stop singing. It was a nice bit of irony that she used what once brought them together, to push him away.
It also shows Arthur wanting to reject the music and insanity that has clouded his whole life instead of embracing it
@ That’s a good point. Nice observation!
It’s also a great reflection of the state of the audience at this point in the movie
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
I wished they used the music as a way he was loosing his mind or something like that. So it could happen at anytime but the audience would know it's cause he loosing himself more and more
5:55 You know how in "The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals", on a plot level, every song in it is the villain song because the musical itself is the villain, but they manage to get around the monotony of that by having them still be songs that serve different purposes, such as an "I Want" song, a lament, a comedy, reprises, and yes, even love songs? Joker 2's creative endeavors begin and end with "Joker and Harley are in love", and not wanting to explore those themes in musical form any further than that. Which honestly feels extremely lazy, because even in musicals whose main plot is about two characters being in love, they still explore many different concepts outside of that central one. Hell, High School Musical even does this better.
And I think the reason why the musical numbers are so limited in scope in Joker 2 is because they are only done from the perceptive of our two lead characters; Arthur and Harley. And that's because Todd's creative vision was that the reason only those two characters have non-diegetic musical numbers is because they're crazy. So since a large number of the characters in the movie aren't crazy, they don't get musical numbers that offer up different perceptives. So we're stuck with Arthur and Harley, whose only perceptives are "gosh, isn't it swell to be in love with someone that just gets you?". The story has nothing to work with because it refuses to give any other plot.
That's why people who enjoy musicals understand that the music is part of the storytelling devices. It's meant to move the story along, not stop it dead in it's track. You're suppose to learn something from the songs. The songs shouldn't halt the show/movie dead in its tracks. That's why it sort of annoys me when people who say they hate musicals start to tune out during the songs. They view the music as decorations when it's apart of the story. If you ignore the music you might as be ignoring the dialogue.
I like how you use examples from video games, they so often get lost in the shuffle imo.
There’s a lecture with Howard Ashman where he echoes your point. You put the songs into moments where the characters are so overwhelmed by emotion that they have to sing.
The audience when Joker 2 was announced: "Why?"
The audience when Joker 2 was announced as a juke-box musical: "Why?"
The audience after seeing Joker 2 "Why?"
Honestly I'm tired of director's not sticking to Source material, they could have done it where him and Harley are doing crazy acts of crime while singing a little bit at a time to each other. As well as made it where while in prison Joker started studying how to make gadgets and start studying how to make his gas and starts getting healthier and stronger so by the time they introduced Batman he actually can put up a fight this frail version of Joker is honestly a bad idea long-term.
the end implies that he isn't the Joker btw and also he dies at the end so there will be no Batman coming along to fight this version
Joker 2 following Joker 1 is like following a five star meal made with love and care... with week old Taco Bell.
Too many people saying, “Joker 2 is a hidden masterpiece that people will realize only years later and start talking about it!” No mf. The only people who will talk about it are the “loud minority” who tricked themselves into thinking it was good from the beginning and everyone else would have forgotten about it already.
This sequel to the original was brilliant to me. I was pleasantly surprised. The story felt organic to the original in that Arthur is now on trial for his crimes but he befriends Harley Quinn and they fall in love. I was expecting both of them to ride off into the sunset but the outcome is very different. It’s utterly bleak, somber, dour and tragic but it works. The musical elements are fine because some are occurring in real time whilst others are purely imaginative. This works to maintain a fine balance between the romance and Arthur’s reputation as the joker. This take on the joker was always meant to be a deconstruction of the man behind the joker which is fleck. The performances are great. I really don’t get the hate. The negative criticism goes over my head. I was really expecting this to be over-indulgent and derivative of what came before but it wasn’t. A good sequel remixes traditional elements and troupes whilst adding a whole new layer of nuance demonstrated through tone, theme and narrative. The joker 2 did just that. Arguably it might be the best film I’ve seen this year.
@ I think the hate stems from the major shift from the first movie. Alot of people liked the first movie cause, even though Arthur was pathetic, he was able to get pay back on a few people that wronged him and it was cathartic to see. Some people just like a basic underdog/revenge story. In this movie he was just pathetic most of the time with no pay off. It was a misery to watch. I get wanting to make a tragic, artsy movie with a realistic and bad ending, but don’t do it with the Joker. He’s supposed to be a fun character to watch. It’s obvious Arthur isn’t the joker and I liked the idea that he was inspiration for the Joker, but I wish they focused more on the guy who killed him( who was supposedly the real joker). They could’ve shown his relationship with Arthur and how it changed from admiration to disdain, but no, they focused on a pointless love with a Harley Quinn character, who isn’t even Harley Quinn. There was just no pay off for me, but I’m glad you were able to find enjoyment from it.
@ if you haven’t seen it already, I recommend The Substance cause that movie focuses a lot on themes, social commentary and visual storytelling, and I would put it in my top 5 movies this year. It’s pretty gory though so if you’re not into that then probably skip it haha.
I think a big issue using existing music is that most songs are about love and seemingly the other half are about breakups
Joker 2 ruined the way I saw the first Joker movie. Just the idea, that a movie director re-doing everything, basically hating on his OWN movie is ridicules.
He didn't hate on his own movie...he hated the incels that misinterpreted the first movie.
@@bryna7which that still isn’t an excuse to ruin something you personally made
@@damonlam9145 Could you elaborate why you think so?
@@aeroallergen It makes you look insecure and pathetic. To have so little appreciation for your own work that you'll willingly trash it and spend hundreds of millions of dollars just to show up the 'wrong' crowd that enjoyed it the wrong way. The whole thing feels petty and unpleasant, it's like watching a snide, haughty, holier-than-thou artiste go on a temper tantrum.
@@aeroallergenit's mostly like... why waste time making something you hate? It was clearly not for the money save for ruining the bottom line of the folks who hired him again. The whole thing is just so weirdly spiteful. If you wanted to lambast the Incels there were more interesting ways to do it than 2 hours of a below average courtroom drama. Imagine if instead he got to lead a gang but, like, incredibly incompetently. That'd make for great dark humor if done right
As someone who loves musicals, films like this make me want to join the ' not everything needs to be a musical' crowd.
The second I found out it was a jukebox musical, any benefit of the doubt I'd been harboring evaporated.
the issue is doing only mostly haooy love songs. the story is also a court drama, what about some songs about being a criminal? the country genre 's full of those. What about songs about mental illness, since it's also a major theme? you can crib from everyone from Nina Simone to PinkFloyd. It's about an unhealthy relationship, there are many expressive songs about toxic love, it's Taylor Swift's bread and butter, and the same goes for nick cave and Alice Cooper.
I'm sure people who have actual knowledge of musicals from the 30's to the 60's could find all of those kinds of songs to better fit the story and be used to actually progress the plot.
@@maximeteppe7627 the joker singing jailhouse rock actually sounds like fun, so I guess they couldn't have that 😅
Not beating those stupid allegations
18:53 in the stage musical it’s made clear she’s singing specifically about Sam, who did cheat on her. So the song does make a lot more sense within the story, unlike pretty much all of the songs in Joker: Folie a Deux.
It literally feels like a bad video game , the actual story being the terrible gameplay and the countless musical numbers being the cutscenes.
Did I just realize Colm Wilkinson played the priest in the Les Mis movie???? This just made my night
That was incredibly cool of the film makers to do that.
@niallreid7664 I know!!! He will forever be my Jean Valjean 😊
Wilkinson was such a great singer and actor in Les Miserables.
An example of how good musical films utilize each of their numbers to do something important:
Beauty and the Beast:
Belle: Establishes village setting, introduces protagonist and motivation, introduces villain and villain sidekick
Be Our Guest: Establishes Castle setting, multiple important side characters
Something There: Advances romance between protagonist and love interest
Beauty and the Beast: Culminates romance
Gaston: Delves in villain’s motivation and character
Mob Song: Moves plot forward by introducing threat of a mob attacking the castle
Or…
Camelot (1967)
Song 1: Introduces lead, establishes beginning situation & his perspective
Song 2: Establishes second lead, offers her perspective
Song 3: Establishes importance of central location/idea of the musical through a simple leitmotif that will repeat throughout
Song 4: Establishes third lead and characterizes him strongly
And so on
Honestly I think the bigger problem here is there was no plot. What happened really? Arthur meets Harley and goes to trial. Ok and? They tell us about the support he has outside but we never see it until that bomb that feels random and out of place, they make a point this is one of the first televised cases only to never talk about it again, we don’t really get to meet Harley and her true motivations, and so on. Musical or not it doesn’t matter, there was nothing to tell either way.
Apparently Joker was so popular people who worked on the news got paranoid someone would blow their brains out like that one guy near the end of the movie, and people who went to the movies during the time of Joker's release were actually searched just in case. So a theory I have is that when a sequel was announced, the writers were bribed to make it complete garbage.
Sigh probably had to do with the Aurora Colorado theater mass shooting
It feels like this product was made to spite people who liked the first one.
I still can't wrap my head around creative writers and directors looking at their extremely popular and acclaimed works and instead of giving the audience more of what they liked, they do what's akin to swerving a car as hard as you can onto a path nobody asked for, completely ignoring the path blatantly ahead of them.
I agree. But, I also feel like we’d critique them for ‘playing it safe’ if they hadn’t. It’s like a tightrope of ‘try new things, but by god you’d better get it right!!’ 😅
10:11 Quite so. Endgame's "Time travelling" ruined the MCU. It proves how just how hard it is to write Time travel for dumb writers
1000% agree. So much potential wasted.
@@jelyfisherIt was so incredibly bad, and I already didn't like Infinity War which I was so excited for. I went to see Endgame alone because my boyfriend didn't want to keep me company and my oh my was that a waste of my money and my bag of snacks 😅 I was just a big question mark, wondering why every decision they had made was so far from being a part of an actual story to tell.
In fact we’ve seen over and over how important the musical numbers are to the flesh of a movie on the Disney live action adaptations. One of the things that brought down the Mulan adaption was cutting out the musical numbers and not replacing them with anything.
I think of "I am Moana" and the pivotal role it played in expressing Moana's victory over self-doubt, and I get what you are saying. Even with her achievements, Moana had reached her lowest point and was ready to give up on her quest. Overcoming that could not have been expressed in mere words.
As someone who hates musicals: I just wanna say that there was not a single moment during the run time of this movie that I was not dreading the next musical number.
"It came to me in a dream" - Joaquin Phoenix explaining his idea for Joker 2 to Todd Phillips (I'm serious)
James Cameron he ain’t.
I wish he had forgotten that dream
4:18 this is a take I disagree with and feels like has emerged as a result of the Tumblr musical boom.
Older musicals, including film musicals would often have a couple of spetacle songs that didn't really serve a purpose. I can think of White Christmas where they have the Choreography song that- literally does nothing in that film and does not tie in. That doesn't mean a musical should be filled with nonsense unless the point is to be a spectacle musical, but the idea that you have to have a number serve a purpose and you can't have one exist to just be a pretty song with pretty visuals is not a take I agree with.
Joker's still a bad musical.
In general I think it's underrated having a scene for the sake of it rather than everything serving twenty different purposes. I think these people's heads would explode if they saw anything from David Lynch
The rule of cool has taught me: if something really hits with people and they love it, it can exist for the sake of it.
You could argue that "entertaining the audience" *is* a purpose. If it's a sluggish point in the story and you need to perk them up and get them re-invested and excited for example, or hit them out of the gate with spectacle, or if your cast or crew have particular skills you want to show off. Whereas "because I want to make a musical, so I need musical numbers" is genuinely not a valid reason.
@pseudonymous9153 In the video the purpose the essayist is referring to is being character or story driven. We seem to agree that's not true and you can have a song exist for the purpose of entertainment, and even an entire musical built around just that. A lot of Jukebox musicals are just songs the creator liked tied together with thinly strung plots that were never meant to be all that important.
It's a take I dislike because it ignores the fact that when you go to a musical you're going for- the music? In many, like Cats for example, the plot is really not as important as the songs and that's okay. Even in ones where it is important, as long as it's used in an appropriate place and the story doesn't come to a sudden stop for no reason, having a spectacle song is perfectly okay. It's all about execution at the end of the day.
Can we please get an analysis on the pitch perfect trilogy? I didn't realize any of that about the music and thought it was really interesting and want to hear more
I actually do agree with the statement that giving the Joker a musical was not a bad idea. In fact, before most of the details of this movie started getting out, I was really in favor of the idea. After all, the Joker has done musical numbers in the past, and it's only natural for a big, egotistical, crazy character that thrives on spectacle like the Joker to have a story told through one of the most spectacle driven genres in history; a musical. Trouble is, Todd Phillips doesn't really understand what makes musicals good. Like, the only other musical movie he directed at that point was "A Star is Born", which was a remake of a remake of a remake. It's kind of hard to fuck up a musical when it's already been done for you three times. But when it comes to original works, surprise surprise, the guy that made the Hangover Trilogy and the most overrated story about psychology I've ever seen didn't really do a good job making his first original musical.
The other problem is that I didn't want this version of the Joker to have a musical, because he honestly was never the Joker to me. Hell, he isn't even actually the Joker in his own movies. So not only is it a wasted concept because it's applied to the tamest, least chaotic version of the character, but also just not actually the character we give a shit about. It's about the guy that somehow inspires the guy we would actually like to see a movie and/or musical for.
The final nail in the coffin for this movie was hammered in as soon as I heard that it was going to be a jukebox musical with only one original song. It's not that jukebox musicals can't be good, because there are definitely plenty of good ones. But they run the risk of not being completely as connected to the story and emotional beats as fully original songs do. Some of the better jukebox musicals out there can avoid this by just planning the play around the songs and constructing a story from that. Even better if all the songs are from a single artist or band, since that way, they can get a similar frame of reference for all the songs rather than trying to find songs from multiple different artists that might relate to each other. It worked great in Across the Universe with them using Beatles songs.....less so in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but that's mostly because they were trying to force Beatles songs to work with the movie rather than have the movie work with the Beatles songs. In the case of Joker 2, it feels more like they found songs from all over the place that kind of fit what they wanted to go for with the story, but it wasn't a perfect fit.
They probably made it a jukebox musical thinking making original ones would be harder. Plus, the originaloved ocasionally player popular songs of the time.
I think an interesting phenomenon is that some auteur director types are now trying to turn to musicals, with them gaining some respect after years of being looked down on, but they are totally unwilling to work with, and therefore cede some creative control to, composers and lyricists who genuinely know what they're doing. The mindset of an screenwriter-director is so different from a musical bookwriter, who is said to do half the work for a third of the money, a tenth of the credit, and all of the blame. The rejection of collaboration has led to lots of the bad movie musicals we've seen
They think they’re in the same league as the greats of the New Hollywood Era but have been raised in the more corpritised industry post-Heaven’s Gate.
I like when Henry cuts to himself I become the bikini bottom people when I see him: "Bald, Bald, Bald,... my eyes"
It was hard not using the meme.
@@TheCloserLook Jokes aside from my SUBJECTIVE opinion you are the best reviewer on any platform and I watch a lot. Maybe only second to Pitch Meeting.
23:15 "Ah God Nord VPN fuck it they've sponsored me" This is the best transition to an ad I've ever heard.
6:10 love how the point is that all the love songs say the same thing, but then shows a clip that clearly is subverting the idea of their relationship.
Nice attention to detail.
You know a major problem with Jukebox Musicals now, too? We can listen to these songs whenever we want. Spotify, UA-cam, Streaming, order a CD online, you name it. The world is your oyster for music. That ability to listen to what you want, whenever you want, is relatively new. It wasn't always like that: I remember my mom, not too many years ago, tuning in to watch just the opening of Top Gun anytime it was on TV just so she could hear Danger Zone and then she'd turn it off because she couldn't care less about the movie itself. Back then, sitting through Mamma Mia! to hear some ABBA songs, or hell watching Maximum Overdrive for the AC/DC songs, was one of the more convenient ways to hear a bunch of music you'd like and sitting through a plot you couldn't care less about was small price to pay, so Jukebox Musicals as a concept made more sense and had a wider audience. Nowadays, since you can just google any song you want, the only draw for a musical is if it has original songs that are tailored to the plot, or if it uses the jukebox-style music in an exceptionally good way.
1:14 Henry jumpscare
Oh, uh... since when did Vsauce do movie reviews? Also, who's Henry? /j
Danke für den Hinweis
@@doodleBurgerswhy german?
@@blobfischli Warum meine Muttersprache verwenden? Du willst, dass ich meine Vorfahren entehre, indem ich ihnen die Zunge verliere?
So true
The beginning of the video reminds me of Cosmonauts statement: "I really hate when people say. What was even the point of that movie?. It is such a non statement. What is the point of any movie? But when I came out of the theatre after seeing Joker 2, I said. What was even the point of that movie?"
The fact that you picked the worst example for Les Mis and it’s still better than Joker 2 says it all tbh.
A just incredible playwright, film maker, and the guy responsible for the Disney renaissance was Howard Ashman. The little mermaid, beauty and the beast were his brain children he was incredible. And his ethos that was how you integrate musical numbers into a script is when you’re so emotional you can’t talk you sing and then when you get more emotional you dance. But if a script makes sense without the song cut it. They have to add, they have to move the story forward in some way. He very sadly died of complications to AIDS before the release of Beauty and the beast and the movie is dedicated to him. He was so important to the film as he got to sick to travel to work on it the entire production moved from London to New York to consult him at his home. The world especially musicals is less bright without him.
The director said he wanted to take a risk. "Risk" implies a possibility of things working OR not working.
We praise risk when someone thinks outside the box and still manages to land on their feet. We praise risk when it pays off.
Now, certain filmakers like Todd Phillips seem to think that risk itself deserves to be rewarded, and it doesn't. Risk that doesn't pay off doesn't deserve to be praised as if it did pay off.
Of course, what works or doesn't work depends on the taste and preferences of each audience member. What "pays off" for me may not pay off for the next guy, but one thing is universal: each person will praise what they like and not praise what they don't like.
If a director takes a risk in making a movie, and such movie fails to appeal to most audiences, such director should't expect an A for effort. Risk by itself is not enough.
Great video! I had similar issues with how Joker 2 handled its music myself, so it's nice hearing another person raising these points.
One thing I disagree about though is that I'd say "The Joker is Me" is actually one of the songs that can't be cut out. In my opinion, it's the best song of the movie and the only one that fulfills the promise of a "Joker musical".
1. It actually pushes the story forward, showing Arthur's realization that his lawyer's defense is humiliating him, and him deciding to take up his Joker persona again (whether that was a plot point the movie should have had in the first place is a different discussion).
2. It takes advantage of the "unreality" of having a musical number. It might be all in Arthur's head (the way the songs are portrayed as being in the characters' heads in something like Chicago), but it lets production have fun and be creative. Joker singing while killing the prosecutor and shooting at the jury is exactly what I imagined when I first heard Joker 2 would be a musical. The number also reveals some information about Arthur's thoughts that isn't told to us before. It might be on the nose, but it shows you his hatred of the judge and jury and his other psychotic thoughts.
3. While Joaquim can sing (see Walk the Line), it's one of the only songs that benefits from the "purposely realistic" (ie. purposely bad) singing the movie chooses to have its characters do. It being a more energetic and angry song makes it more acceptable when he's out of tune or stops singing to yell his lines. The energy and tone covers up issues with the performance, as opposed to a slower love song where the issues with the singing are more noticeable. This is something you find done even in good musicals too. Take King Herod's Song from Jesus Christ Superstar. In the 1973 version, Herod stops singing and essentially speaks the end of the song to show his anger, and in the 2000 version, it allows Herod to be played by Rik Mayall, who isn't a great singer, without it being a problem. Something like a patter song like "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from Pirates of Penzance would another example, as performing that song well requires less on singing ability, and more being able to speak very fast.
it's always lovely to have your insights while i work
Thanks!
They totally couldve had arthur sing well. Hell, id say it wouldve been the RIGHT choice, because they could make it a callback to the first movie with arthur fantasizing about his comedy doing well. Ok top of that, it could make a great moment of levity, or a bit of a change of pace at least if during one of the heavier songs (assuming they wrote more songs about literally any other aspect of arthur than new love, which they didnt), the scene cuts to arthur along on the same stage he bombed the comedy routine on, and theres just empty seats. Arthur would finish off the song songing horribly, a stark contrast to the singing in the fantasy. They had everything lined up to give Phoenix free reign for singing, but they chose to fumble it
I felt like Arthur should've sang "for once in my life" directly to Lee in music class. Like if we got more scenes of them interacting in music class or and building the romance more or something and then he sings and dances with her while singing that song.
Boddy i have notification on and i STILL didn't get notification for this video till today.
I think this would’ve been better received with fewer songs and every song would need to be either on old Vaudeville number or entirely original but written in that old, showy style. The numbers could ramp up more closer to the end and the imaginary sets would get bigger and more lavish; Joker’s singing in the first song could be all his own voice but as the film progresses, there’s less and less of him in each song, instead we would hear classic covers by recognizable singers or at least approximations, all to show in a fun and subtle way how he’s losing his grip on reality until it ends in a huge production with dancing and singing and costume changes and all that juxtaposed with him dying.
So much potential.
2:43 That can't happen when the director hates the comic books and their movies and thinks superhero movies "are not real movies" while seeing himself and his garbage creations as something above them🙄
I agree with pretty much everything you said about Joker, you have great takes! HOWEVER...I have to disagree with what you said about Mamma Mia
You said that Donna sang about being cheated on by one of her old lovers, even though she never was...but the thing is that, she absolutely was cheated on. At the end of the film, and during the sequel, it's established that when Sam met Donna, he already had a girl back home. He was cheating on this girl with Donna, and therefore, cheating on Donna with the girl too.
Also, regarding what you said about Donna singing about one man despite having three lovers: I at least interpret it as her thinking exclusively of Sam while singing Mamma Mia. I believe that despite his cheating, she always had feelings for him, and only him. She cared about Bill and Harry, but she saw Sam as "the one that got away". When you take all of this into consideration, this song fits in perfectly and seamlessly into the story in my opinion.
But anyway, despite everything I said...this was a really good video, good job!
I personally love the term Objective. I dislike people misusing it. That is an important distinction. Similarly, I dislike people abusing the term Subjectively as some sort of catch-all escape to try and suggest an objective view but a means of escaping any counter argument by veiling themselves under the excuse that it is entirely subjective and therefore cannot be argued. But I can understand your annoyance, it is just a matter of people being unable to properly explain themselves, or to maintain a proper objective standard to make proper use of the term Objectively.
I feel like one of the (many) things that would've made this movie better would've been following Harley and her perception of who Joker is. Making her the main character gives you something fresh to say, and you don't have to regress Arthur.
I wonder why Gaga didn't help this time 🤔 She was so much of a muse in "a star was born" that I had high hopes that she might bring in her talent and experience on to this as well... but she simply played her designated part like any other actor would've done. Somewhat weird
I think she was only hired to sing in this movie because it worked in Star is born
Been watching you for years. Keep up the good work man, you deserve the best.
Thanks dude. I will!
I watched a lot of reviews that just went "Joker 2 bad" without any explanation of their opinions. Even though I mostly strongly disagree with you it was at least nice to see someone properly express their opinion about a topic instead of just going "thing bad" and then listing things they didn't like about it with no reasoning.
I never caught onto how many of the songs were about the two being in love. 12 out of 13 is definitely not ideal but it's not like those were all exactly the same. It's a different song now, it's a different situation, they did different things, some of them pretty weird, yet they still love each other. Until they don't.
Creating a parallel to a previous moment by repeating a lot of it in order to highlight what changed and what stayed the same is a very often used and very effective tool in storytelling. They probably didn't need all 12 songs to be about the same thing but on the merit of repeat information alone I don't see how that's a bad thing.
I agree that songs telling us things we already know isn't all that good in a musical but I don't think this is supposed to be your regular musical. For most of the songs I took it as just someone singing songs. Playing pretend and trying to make their life a musical without it actually being one. They're gonna take songs that already exist and work them in best they can. I've done that dozens of times.
Them making Pheonix and Lady Gaga sing bad on purpose makes a lot more sense if you view it that way. On some level it's just two people singing stupid songs because they feel like it and I kinda love that.
I think Joker 2 was great. No, I don't want a 3rd movie either but I'm happy Joker 2 exists.
I just hope big shot producers don't take this as a proof of people hating musicals....
I loved the Pitch Perfect Ted talk in the middle. Please do a serperate video about it, even if it's just a 2 minute April fool's video, I'd watch it like 1000 times! There were a good 3 months in my life where I watched Pitch Perfect every day, and I feel so validated now!
I would LOVE to see a rewrite from you even though that might be hard i would still love it bcs of how well you understood its flaws
I don’t even think the musical angle was a bad idea. You could actually do something really interesting with it if you play your cards right.
Unfortunately not only are the songs bad, they do nothing to enhance what’s going on in the story, which is what songs in a musical are SUPPOSED to do.
My personal favorite jukebox musical movie is Rocketman cuz, well, it's Elton John songs in an Elton John biopic with Mr. Elton John himself still alive to give input 😂 Can't get a better formula than that
22:11 It’s strange that they actually did this for That’s Entertainment. The first couple time it’s ’everything that happens in life yada yada’ but in the final reprise at the end it’s ’A show that is really a show, sends you out with a kind of a glow, and you’ll say as you go on your way, that’s entertainment.’
2:36.... I don't know if advertisement placements will be the same for everyone watching the same video But either way for me it was a perfect advertisement placement Joker was singing something And then a fast food advertisement came on where they were doing some overtime singing number I think it was burger king maybe LOL but it was just perfectly timed And I'm just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that?? Or this thing in general??
I love your videos I'm writing my own script, and your videos are so insightful on what to do and what not to do
Thanks, dude. Good luck with the story!
(Opening the video with a response) To answer the question as a fan of musicals and someone who adores Chicago: they failed the Howard Ashman rule. Characters speak until they feel too much, then sing until that's also not enough, then finally they dance AND sing... all to progress the plot so we know how crucial those feelings are as motivation. Joker 2 threw random singing bits in and they did nothing.
Thank you! I said this to my friends after the movie, a musical's scores are supposed to develop the plot/characters motives and engage the audience. The Joker 2's musical numbers failed at this horribly which made it easy to disengage when on screen.
it makes me think about how the movie "Emilia Pérez" was told through a musical, which sounds incredibly weird given it's a gangster movie, but it works wonderfully well. Every musical part of the story becomes the focal point of each chapter, the introduction and/or the conclusion. i'd love to see someone do an analysis of this movie
"NO! NO! NO! NO MORE SONGS!!!!"
- Yellow Guy, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 6
Don't tell me there is a Joker 2. Joker 2 does not exist.
Thank you for the point of "saying things in a roundabout way is a trait of a bad musical". My boyfriend took me to a local musical performance. I was so bored watching it, even though I usually enjoy musicals. I was analyzing why it was so boring and couldn't pinpoint what went wrong. Why, for example, I totally love "Heathers" as a musical and not this one. Now I get it: the songs were so long and convoluted that I couldn't even grasp what was going on. They were trying to explain their characters and move the plot, but it was going at such a pace and in such a confusing manner that I couldn't help but fall asleep.
3:50 Hearing the actual lines instead of "24601 releases a sammich on parole" gave me whiplash
Love that you brought up Moulin Rogue. Phenomenal jukebox musical and made the most of the songs they used, unlike a certain film.
joaquin phoenix ... singing bewitched, bothered and bewildered was NOT on my 2024 bingo card and i wish it had stayed like that
Emilia Pérez existe
El mundo: talvez fui demasiado duro contigo
I was one of the few people who supported the idea of a Joker musical.... then the film came out and I regretted my support... The music felt so well incorporated in the first, they talked a lot about how his character had music constantly playing in his head. So I thought escalating to a musical makes sense... but the VAST majority of the music in the film should have been original, complementing how incredible the OST was for the first Joker. I do think that it could be okay to have a couple of jukebox moments but yeeeeeaaaah... no...
They did make new arrangements for the majority of the songs which I think added a new identity to them