The important thing to add is that motivation =/= backstory. Many movies over-explain mysterious characters, especially in prequels and sequels, and often ruin their charm in the process, when all they need are hints and suggestions. Hannibal Lecter is psychopath who sees people as toys to play with. That's his motivation, he doesn't need a stupid origin story about avenging his sister.
There is plenty of motivation to hannibal lecter, even in the silence of the lambs. He Wants to control Clarice, he wants to escape, he loves the fear he inspires, and he in general wants to control people because he feels superior to them. That is motivation enough for a compelling character. Then indeed there is the rest that expands on his twisted sense of ethics where he is judge to all being, and he decides who lives and who doesn't , and those who don't end up as dishes in lecter's plate.
Maxime Teppe You basically just elaborated on what I said. He sees people as a means of entertainment. All the world's a stage and he the director. If they're entertaining enough on their own, he doesn't attack them until provoked (Clarice, Will). The thing is, you learn all of that about Lecter without knowing anything about his backstory. That's good character writing, because his traits come from his actions, not from exposition.
I agree generally that motivation is good for villains, but I still think someone without motivation can be scary and well written. People expect some sort of reason to things, so a nihilistic villain with no loyalties can be unsettling on a deep level, that to them you are just one of hundreds of people being killed, without a name. You're nothing to them and there is no meaning to you.
He may not care that he's killing people, but he in the end, he is killing people for a reason, even if it is to prove his nihilism or something like that
Okay, but if you are free to kill and it means nothing to you, then why kill at all? Just to prove you can or that it means nothing to you? I feel like there is more to that motivation to kill then just nihilism.
Holy Mackerel the Third Thats already a motivation. A guy with no empathy, confused by himself, doing things for no reason because of his body's orders, which he doesn't understand.
Someone without motivation is depressed and doesn't do anything in reality so someone that does something with no motivation is purely fiction and boring
Man, I really enjoy your work and your storytelling, pitches, tips/advice and your movies. When I graduate in 2020 and go to film school, I really hope to work with you as I become an amateur director in a few years. You've inspired me to become a director and also inspired me to write a ton of pitches for movies. Thank you, Max Landis.
Totally agree with you, the joker is the exception to the rule. The rule is that for an interesting villian, this one must have well rationalize intentions and complexities that move him forward. The exceptions work because they are exceptional, not easy to make and ever so common. The Joker has had a history of excelent writers and artist giving him decades to evolve and sculpt himself to what we know today. If you make a character and think that he will suddently become just as interesting as the Joker by making him crazy and shallow, you are wrong. Don't use the Joker as a cop-out. Edit: Also "anything can be good if done well" is a non-answer. Of course anything can be good is done good. And anything can be wet if it is wet.
All I'll say to any criticism on this is, the Killing Joke is widely lauded as the best Joker story, probably the best Batman story, and possibly one of the best comics of all time. The Killing Joke is also the one thing that came close to really giving the Joker some sick kind of audience sympathy, providing him with some form of motivation and emotion. And most ways I'd think of adapting it to any other medium would really strum on those parts of it rather than Batman wailing on him for a brief moment. Mystery means "Don't say everything," not "Don't say anything."
Joker to the Kid: "I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?"
I remember seeing an Extra Credits video where they pointed out Joker works as a force of nature or an embodiment of chaos to narratively mirror Batman. Does this method of adding hints of backstory to such a character not diminish their impact as a "force of nature"?
I think that the real issue with trying to explain The Joker is the issue with trying to make a film adaptation of a very abstract novel: we've gone so long with lots of people having their own personal interpretations that there's no way for people to accept one interpretation as canon. The Joker is always going to be most accepted as what he is: somebody who very loosely follows an insane plan based on abstract motivations (such as exposing Batman as being like The Joker, or dragging society down to his level, or just creating general chaos to make the world something he is more comfortable living within) but if you bring in who he was that brings him to this point then most people reject it. This is even part of why in The Killing Joke they make sure to imply that the backstory they give is possibly just another thing he's made up, as there was no person before there was the force of nature that is The Joker. It doesn't matter that his past is mysterious, all that matters is that somehow the world was capable of incubating something like who he ended up as and who he is is somebody horrifying. All of the best executions in the world of something that undoes that mystery will not be accepted simply because it's really not necessary and people have grown to have expectations that they don't want broken. A new character that is ostensibly The Joker but with a backstory could do very well, but it's just one of those things where there are too many pressures from the audience who are already full of preconceived notions about the character that they accept too hard to be willing to part with.
Chronicle was fantastic, 4 years later and I watched it on youtube with those foreign subtitles, totally worth it. Should have got the blu-ray for my first watch though. Great film max
The fact that everyone commenting has their own idea of what the Joker is to them is truly a testament to the character. He's one of the most mercurial figures in all of comics, and the fact that JUST ENOUGH is known about him facilitates numerous interpretations. We don't have to know his motivations verbatim. Rather, we know enough to interpret him the way we see fit. The same can be said for all the great writers that have handled him in numerous ways, a completely fluid counterpoint to the mostly static interpretation of Batman. In an eery way, he's an intimate character, in that most people taylor their view of him with their favorite version of the character combined with their experiences in life. Basically, when it comes to the Joker, we're all right, and we're all wrong.
This is why Nolan was spot on in the Dark Knight. Nolan's Joker HAS a motivation and its to usher in chaos. The way he gets there is where the mystery and suspense comes in.
See, that is the fundamental misunderstanding about the Joker. There is ALWAYS a reason behind why he does stuff even if he tells you there isn't. In the Dark Knight he wanted to prove that deep down people were just as horrible as he was. The Killing Joke is similar. He wants to prove that even somebody as good as Commissioner Gordon can become like him. In Death of the Family he is obsessed with returning things to the simplicity of when he first fought Batman. Just the two of them. The Joker is very much a chaotic character, but even chaos has a reason for why it is.
Well, that's what Max is saying. There's a reason whenever he's well written, like all well written villains. But the times when he's just ol' unpredictable Joker who does things just because, then it's uninteresting, and lazy writing. Something I'd agree with. And even when his intentions aren't outright stated, when well written, they are at the very least cleverly hinted at so that the reader/viewer can make the villains motives clear by themselves.
There's a difference between knowing someone's background and knowing their motivation that a lot of people miss. When Scott Snyder reintroduces Joker, he has a clear motivation: he wants to get under Batman's skin and he wants to prove their on an even intellectual playing field. It's intuitive, it add a sense of terror to the scene and you don't need to demystify Joker's origin for it to work.
Excellent advice! I got nothing to add but to say that people who are enthralled with mysterious characters like Boba Fett or Joker (when he is written that way) live out their powerfantasies through them? And that is what makes them so popular even though they have the personality of a Goomba in SuperMario bros.
I like the message here, just not necessarily how it pertains to Joker. Joker does have motivations, lots of them -- the mystery of the character is littered with nuggets of enlightenment that make him more interesting. Frequently, his motivation boils down to an extremely perverse codependency and love for Batman, which IS very eerie. Good analysis, poor example.
no, it's the best example: lots of people believe the joker has no motivation and take him as the poster child for mysterious character, when in fact, even if there is no certainty about his origin, we do (as you pointed out) have tons of informations about his motivations. Fascination with batman, indeed. Chaos, in TDK, an exploration of what led him there in the killing joke, etc... So peopl who take the joker as example of an empty character who just does terrible stuff for no reason just don't have understood the joker and how his motivations make him interesting.
These are just a few motivations I've seen in the Joker, from different writers: 1. Entertainment (basically, treating and structuring his actions as gags, with horrified onlookers and victims as "tough crowd", trying to make them laugh but being the only one laughing because to everyone else his actions are horrific, not funny). 2. A desire to show other people that they are just as bad as he is on the inside (in a sense, he's going around accusing people of "virtue signaling" and trying to prove it by pushing people over the edge), especially Batman. 3. "Love" for Batman. Not in any healthy sense, but on some level, he's got a huge crush on Batman. If Harley Quinn is present in these stories, her crush on the Joker is entirely unrequited. He won't even look at her. He's too preoccupied with courting (plotting against) Batman. Insecurity easily plays into all of these in some way. So I'd say yeah, insecurity as a major motivator for the Joker makes total sense. However, I don't think that means he needs a concrete backstory to explain exactly where that insecurity comes from. The idea of the insecure comedian is universal enough not to need much explaining. It often comes with the territory.
I agree, but Joker DOES have a motive: he's motivated by a twisted sense of humor and an insatiable compulsion to act out the desires that we restrain (or simply don't have).
Hi Max. I've heard you say , in "Regarding Clark" for instance, that you like movies where character drives story. I'm not sure I understand what this means. Is that what you're talking about in this video? Could you explain this?
I'm no expert, but I think "character drives story" means that characters' motivations and interactions move the story forward rather than the situations that the characters are put into. In this video, Max is saying that characters' actions and interactions have to make sense based on their individual motivations. Therefore, we must understand their motivations (at least a little bit) in order to move the story forward organically. Otherwise, we won't care about the characters and we won't care about the story.
It means that he doesn't like movies where characters do things for the sole purpose of moving the story along. Like how a character might betray the hero just because he needs someone to fight in the third act.
Joker is quite a tuff one in my opinion. Sure everything he does has motivation and passion, and thats why we all love him. but the motivation itself is often described pretty crypticly. I feel that everything he does is for the general spreading of chaos and anarchy and the amusement that comes from the act. He loves to invade and play with peoples minds and he wants people to remember and maybe even emulate him, as sort of his legacy. And for me thats enough of a motivation. The thing is: The comics did a great job to make his origin pretty vague, and imo that is great (The dark knight also did it). Over time the Joker has evolved to more than just a character for better or worse, he became a complete antithesis to the good in people. So it is just fitting to not totally specify where his crazyness came from because it can come from many places. For the Joker to be the embodiment of insanity and evil, you have to be really careful to ground him all too much. I believe the Killing Joke said it the best, where he couldn't really remember why he turned out that way but figured that he might have just "one bad day".
The Joker's weakness is his insecurity. The Joker, ironically, does not like people laughing at him. This was in The Dark Knight, ("I'm not crazy, I'm NOT,") in Batman Beyond, ("Don't you dare laugh at me!") and in Infinite Crisis, where he kills the Royal Flush Gang member for making fun of him. ("Don't you get it? The Joker's too wild!")
The way I see it is that the Joker wants to notice him and to see him as a crazy individual desperately needing attention, and he finds it mostly through Batman, because he's brave enough to antagonize him.
I think a problem with the Joker, is when he says that he is doing things for the sake of choas, people it it up. The thing with Joker is that he can't be trusted, not even beyond the fourth wall. His motivations are often understated, and have to be read into.
This is like his argument with TFA, "it's boring because of X". But really, "boring" is so vague and subjective that trying to establish some kind of rule is about it is counterproductive. Many people like The Joker as "nihilistic", "does stuff for fun", that's why they write it that way.
So, are you saying that the Joker is a boring character or are you saying that the Joker's motives *do* have meaning but it's often overlooked because of his general description as a "force of nature" or "embodiment of chaos" ? Take a comic like Death of the Family were the whole premise seems to be Joker trying to start over to a simpler and easier time with Batman, from my observation Joker does have a lot of issues but I'm wondering if that's what you're trying to explain or not.
How is it that you can do that. I'm sitting here in my room just saying, "holy shit." Wow, I don't think I have thought of it that way before. Max Landis ladies and Gents out here saying shit that makes my little writer heart giggle.
I think there's a balance to this. Make someone too relatable, and you risk removing the urgency behind the character, or making the character wimpy. But if he's not relatable enough, he's not a character anymore, but a plot device. It's possible to make a "force of nature" villain without reducing their personalities to that of a natural disaster. As I see it, the best way to make a character like the Joker scary is not by revealing nothing about him, because that is not a mystery. We need to see a glimpse for us to know that there even is a mystery to begin with. Give people a glimpse of how he ticks, why he does what he does, and make him relatable enough to where the reader can imagine him- or herself in his skin, but make us uncomfortable when we do. The key behind the Joker should always be that he was once a normal human like anyone else, that any of us could be the Joker if pushed to the limit. I am curious to see what DC are doing with the Joker in 'Rebirth'. They're telling us there have been three Jokers. This could either be a terrible development, or a great one. If all it serves is to completely exhaust the backstory of the Joker, it could potentially ruin the character for a long time to come. If they're doing it just to be able to make previous backstorys, like the one told in 'The Killing Joke' definitive canon, while still keeping the past of the current joker a mystery, I don't know how to feel. I prefer leaving that up to the reader to interpret how they like. Lastly, if they are doing it for the purpose of opening up even more questions about the Joker; to give us just a little bit more insight, only for us to realise the mystery was even bigger than we thought, that I am all for. If we overexplain, and leave nothing up to the reader, the character becomes less engaging. But likewise, if we're given nothing to work with, we have *nothing* to engage with. That is my take on this, anyway.
When I saw Suicide Squad's Joker operating the way he did, as well as actually having motivation and intelligence beyond unpredictability with the power he had and the fear he operated out of, I instantly thought of this video. I prefer Scarface Joker as opposed to Being unpredictable for the sake of being unpredictable Joker ^_^
I'd say MOST characters need motivation, but Joker is an embodiment of chaos, therefore he can have some wiggle room. He's not an engaging character BECAUSE he has mysterious motivations, he's engaging IN SPITE of them.
nice to hear your take on the jokeron a side note, I was wondering if you ever heard of this new character in marvel called cryptomnesia from the Hercules series(Which is a Great series by the way) who is like the "God of Social Media" that fans are saying kind of resembles you(at least with the hair part)
I dunno. I have the same emotional reaction of "Joker shot a kid" as "Joker shot a kid because it was making him insecure". Mystery is useful. Inexplicable actions have a tendency to get people asking, "Why" and thinking deeper about a narrative. It's not necessarily good or bad - it just gets them thinking. You have to be careful, because people are smart and they will think through you if you're not careful. If you haven't layered it smartly enough, you endanger your writing because you are inviting scrutiny. Meanwhile some people don't want to think that deeply and they find it annoying. Mystery's just another component in that inexplicable brew. I'd consider this line, ""But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die". Famous Johnny Cash line. Though he explains his motivation, it is still inexplicable and cyclical - he doesn't really know "why". Life is mystery, if there wasn't another mystery around the corner, we wouldn't keep turning them. Curiosity is the most human trait - as such it's a potent narrative device. Not good or bad. Just potent. It's compelling, but that can be grating or satisfying. For instance the spinning top in Inception drives people nuts, but.... it also encourages others to look deeper into the narrative and realize there is no objective way to determine whether or not he is in a dream. It divides audiences because it's a powerful narrative device - but it can blow up in your face too.
Actually that's very much a recurring theme of his character. Really the Joker does have a motivation and it is very much getting Batman to see "the funny side" as it were. Of course just how deep this goes depends on the writer. Some do it beautifully like Alan Moore in the Killing Joke which, in a sense essentially recreated the character, some take it too far by basically making the joker in love with Batman,like in outsiders volume 3 where Lex Luthor pisses off the Joker by stating the rather obvious fact that Batman loves Catwoman and not him, and some don't even make it a thing at all, or at least don't present it very well, this mostly happens in the more child friendly media where hes after money or... well nothing I guess.
The Joker is a modern variant of the Vice, which is generally defined as a type of villain who gloats to the audience (House Of Cards being a recent example), but it's significant that the archetype is directly descended from medieval dramatic portrayals of the Devil (as an evil deceiver), which the Joker takes in a slightly different direction. For example, when he lures Harley Quinn to the path of evil, it's well understood by the audience that he's completely beyond redemption and is only manipulating her; gloating would be detrimental to the overall effect. To put it another way, the Joker is the kind of character who would pretend that his insecurity motivated him to kill a kid, to purposely magnify its perceived horror.
To a point, I agree. But not in all cases. Especially in the case of something like the shark in Jaws or the Terminator, or the nazis in Raiders. Those villains are not interesting on their own, and they don't need to be. Even Darth Vader in the original Star Wars had very little development. He was just a stooge who ran around and did evil stuff because it was his job. We didn't get any real meat to his character until the next 2 movies. You just have to figure out where your story's entertainment value is coming from and put the emphasis in the right place. Raiders would not be a better movie if we had 30 minutes devoted to developing Belloq more. He exists to be a foil for Indy, and he works fine for that purpose.
The Shark in Jaws isn't a villain, it's a monster. It does not need a motivation. The Terminator is a literal killing machine, but being more complex than a shark, it kind of needs a motivation, which we know: it is programmed to kill Sarah Connor so that the machines can win the war before it starts (technically this is Skynet's motivation, but since Skynet created and programmed the T-800 in the first film, this its motivation, as well). We know the Nazis' motivation in Raiders: they want an unstoppable weapon to conquer the world, which Belloq has convinced them is the Ark of the Covenant. We know Belloq's motivation: He wants the Ark (Hitler might not even know about it) because he's an archaeologist and it's the archeological find of a lifetime, of many lifetimes, but possibly more important than that is that he wants Indiana Jones to know that he's better than him. That much is established at the beginning of the movie in Peru. In the original Star Wars, we know Vader's motivations, too: Vader wants the plans, so that the Death Star can be protected and so that the Rebellion can be defeated. He leads the Tie Fighter squadron during the Rebels' attack on the Death Star for the same reason. He also wants to show his former Master, Obi-Wan, that he has surpassed him by beating him in a duel to the death. Motivation and 30 minutes or three whole movies of unnecessary and boring character development aren't necessarily the same thing.
Jason Todd Yeah, those are their motivations for why they're after that specific Macguffin in the story. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about giving them more depth and dimension beyond just "I need this thing because X, Y, and Z." I'm talking about the motivation behind the superficial motivation. Yes, the Nazis want the Ark so that they can take over the world, but the movie doesn't go into the philosophy of Nazism or anything like that. There's not a lot of attempts at getting into psyche of these villains and explaining how they got to this point in their lives. Why the Nazis want to take over the world isn't relevant, so it isn't brought up. There's no attempt at making them interesting people the way, say, Inglorious Basterds does. That's all I'm saying. Maybe the point got lost the way I explained it and maybe it's not even what the video is about. But it's something I've always thought about.
+Stephen Leotti That's because in a movie like Inglorious Basterds, we know the Nazi's motivation based on world fucking history. once again, totally irrelevant argument.
***** But even if you didn't, there's that whole scene at the beginning with Waltz' character talking about why he's doing what he's doing. We understand who he is as a person and what brought him to this point in his life. His motivation goes beyond "Because he's evil." He's more complex than most film Nazis. And that's fine, because it's a different kind of story from Raiders. Different kinds of stories require different kinds of characters.
To be fair one of if not the most famous and noteworthy versions of the Joker did have motivations. The Joker from the Dark Knight is motivated by chaos for its own sake as a means of revenge on society. While not being given a clear backstory its implied he is a soldier suffering from ptsd. His trauma from being a soldier made him something else. (someone else? ok wrong dc property) His main point in that movie is to show that a mans moral compass is only as good as there situation. Whether its trying to get both Batman and Harvey Dent to kill him or give regular Gothamites the option to blow up a boat so they can live. In fact these motivations to show people can go wrong if pushed stem from The Killing Joke. The Joker does have motivations.
The Joker is an unusual case because he's actually a very conflicted character, even if it's not made obvious to the readers. In his heart he's a nihilist who finds life to be pointless and actions to be meaningless. However, he also holds a fanatical obsession for a "hero" who tries to prevent the inevitable (chaos, death, a surrender from reason/logic, etc.) One the one hand he holds no value in society, yet on the other hand, he tries so desperately to prove to everyone that Batman is equally or more crazy than him for presuming that he could make a significant difference to an unrelentingly sick world. At least that's how I make sense of him.
Interesting POV and agree.. but that was my main problem with the villain in American Ultra. He just felt so flat and pointless. Like he was just there to fill the void of the needed conflict, when all the other characters felt great. It was this black hole that emptied the movie too much for me to really care about the rest of it.
What about Anton Chigurh? I think he's one of the rare exceptions, probably just cause the Coens wrote him and they seem to be unable to write boring characters
he personifies the evil that has taken over the XX century and that tommy lee jones character can't understand, he has no motivations because he's a force, not a person
Oh are you kidding? His motivations are completely laid out. All he wants to do is kill. And not just kill, he is bound by his own fucked up moral compass to kill you. He killed Brolin's wife out of a threat he gave to a dead man, then uses his odd coin ritual as the best amendment he can give her to live. This is all mysterious, but clearly motivated and far more terrifying than a man simply killing without purpose.
We do sympathize with him although tenuously. Can you remember in tdk when he keeps on asking, You want to know where I got this scars? And then he gives an answer on the lines of his father did it to him or it was because of his wife. These were some of the more intense scenes in the movie. He may have been bullshitting all along but somehow it makes us see him as a victim of abuse.
I've always thought of it like this. An antagonist that just kills and when caught and is asked why they killed, they reply "Wrong place, wrong time...It could have been anyone. They just happened to be walking passed" That to me is scary. They didn't really kill for no reason, but the reason they did kill is convenience. I realise that is really poorly written. My writing skills have decided to go on vacation today.
I think you're right overall max. Still, I always feel like joker is necessary to the batman mythos (I'd argue maybe a two face is closer to his greatest failure but I digress.) to be incredibly cliched and oversimplifying about it, the other batman villians are all little Bruces he tries to stop from their own personal tragedies, while joker is the darkness (joe chill) in the alley (metaphorically cause it's dumb to make joker=joe chill literally)
now I gotta look thru your videos to see if you've talked about your views on the Harley/Joker relationship. that's what this video was related to, anyway, right?
Obviously, there's a subtextual relationship between the Joker & Batman in The Dark Knight. The Joker's methods may seem random, but they're predicated , for whatever reason, on his hatred of Batman. His "chaos" is dependent on involvement, response, & interaction w/Batman. We, as the audience, can imagine a thousand reasons (& have) a person would incidentally hate Batman & dedicate their persona to this hatred. The collateral-damage of Batman's crime-fighting would arbitrarily propagate new "villains" all the time.
Based on your writing of Joker/Superman I would argue that you don't "get" The Joker. He is the arch villain of the ultimate detective. He is not Moriarty, that would be too simple. He's about as smart/conniving as Moriarty but also as chaotic as comedy itself. To him stealing a child's report card knowing that their parents will never believe that happened, is an equal victory to killing Jason Todd. Joker would never come to Metropolis just to plant bombs, he would aim to make Superman look foolish. At very least they would've been set in the shape of a happy face(and then one just placed vaguely middle-ish by his henchmen, even he doesn't know where it is).
As for your example: I would actually be more shocked if he shot that kid without a specific reason ... well at least not out of insecurity. To me, Joker might be more than unbalanced, but in no incarnation I could ever see a scared insecure Joker work. That is a man (or whatever he is) who is ready to die in any second without having regrets whatsoever. The most fun with this character comes from the fact that he is unpredictable and insecurity would make him predictable.
I mean I think the point of the Joker is to be an embodiment of chaos. Because when you compare a man who does the impossible on a daily basis just because his parents died to a guy who does horrible things for no reason at all, that does create an interesting conversation. But yeah Joker is way overused and often misused.
I have a big problem with writing villains, because I always end up giving them a logical reason for every action they take which makes them more human and less menacing. I am internally reluctant to give character a purely detestable motivation because I guess I don't understand the reason for it. What is the point of making a villain, other than satisfying a human's fantasy that all the evil you face can be condensed into one being and gotten rid of by one gunshot?
The Joker being described as not having motivations is the childish interpretation of The Joker. It's like all those people who reduce Harley Quinn to a manic pixie dream girl who happens to kill people sometimes. The characters are much deeper and complex and more interesting than that.
Max I was hoping to see if you watch the ultimate edition bvs cut I hated the movie but i watched it and I changed my mind on it they took out major plot points
But why Joker works where other characters written without motivations don't is that with him there's always the ability to infer. When he's talking about his ideology to Batman or interacting with other characters like Harley you can examine it and start to imagine why he's saying the things that he's saying or doing the things that he's doing, and where that stems from, and any and every possibility is awful. With characters that are just boring and bland they just have nothing to them, there's no intention behind anything they do, with good Joker stories there's always that intention.
i usually agree with you but this is bull. hannibal lecter (silence of the lambs), darth vader (before the prequels) and the joker (the dark knight or any animated dc movies) all have one thing in common they are all the best villains in hollywood and we knew little/nothing about them
You're to a degree and to a degree you are wrong. The Joker proves the latter. The Joker is one big mystery. His motivations are about as clear as flood water. We know virtually nothing of his motivation other than "just because" and yet here he is one of the most popular characters in existence. Him being some emo kid, or some abuses child, or a "victim" of affluenza would not make him compelling. Some characters motivations to their evil work well and help to develop said character. Magneto as a Holocaust survivor adds to his character. Lex and his distrust/obsession/jealousy of Superman adds to his but sometimes there are characters that exist just because. That's what makes them scary. It's like being near a wild dog. You don't know if it's going to attack or ignore you. The second you give a a reason for, you give a way for the character to seek redemption. Then you have that character turn, or try to turn good, they team up with the good guy and then they either stay good, or an anti-hero, or they go back to being bad and that gets old. If I want to see a villain go from bad to good to bad to good over and over, duping the good guy every time I'd watch protesting. Like I said, a cause for motivation is a good character trait to have, but for some characters, like the Joker, the mystery is what works best. So as a writer you can have in your head "this is why he's doing it" to help you write a good story. But keep it in your head and keep the audience in the dark...not that I'm telling you what to do.
Or heck what about Laughing Fish? Joker's Five-Way Revenge sort of works with what your discussing, but otherwise it would seem like you are trying to humanize Joker in ways that aren't there. Isn't Joker's main motivation for everything to Defeat Batman?
I don't think any main character's motivation, villain or hero(ine), necessarily has to be flush known, BUT I will say that it has to at least somewhat suggested, which can be engaging too. Sometimes a more subtle clue or hint as to the motivation can get the audience thinking they've got a shot at predicting the character's motivation. So yeah, I agree with ya, but a little mystery is good too and more engaging. Definitely "zero" motivation is zero interesting.
I almost agree, but then again it kind of has to be fleshed out. Case in point Lex from the new BvS. There are definitely hints, ideas, and some reason for why he does what he does, but since it isn't clear or fleshed out he is forgettable and why so many made him a major talking point of why the film didn't work. Now a character like Hannibal who's motivations are never clear because he has being a true sociopath still far more interesting in all his incarnations because each action he takes, no matter how out of place or strange/disturbing, is established to be that of something unique. Had they not made it clear who was Hannibal or mental state in Silence of the Lambs, he would not be such a stand out part of the film, completely overshadowing the real antagonist of the film Buffalo Bill
Joe Mondragon I use the term "flush" from boxing terminology meaning "in your face." As you can tell, I have a bias toward subtlety when it come to film. So we agree there, it seems. Unfortunately, I have to counter your comment by saying, story-wise, I think Lex was a more interesting character than Hannibal. I was young and perhaps need to go back and watch Silence of.Lambs movie again but from my recollection, I think Hopkin's acting is what made the character appear appealing and interesting (which can happen too: a good actor making an otherwise dull character seem interesting) for some and others, not me. I liked this incarnation of Lex. I think people who didn't were comic book loyalists who went into the BvS movie with their own preconceived notions of how Lex should be. I will say that the BvS timeline was wacky a bit: having a young Lex with an older Bruce Wayne (and Batman) with a blossoming Clark Kent (and Superman)? Weird.
Joe Mondragon No, it is a goal. He wants to screw with Batman - that is an aim of his. But why? He does some things in particular with that aim in mind but there's still the question of why he has that aim. It's like the Riddler's aim is to prove himself to be cleverer than Batman. But again, why? Hm. I've just realised that in both cases what I'm calling aims also class as motivations. A motivation is a reason for acting a certain way. So if the Joker does something dramatic you can say he's motivated by the want to screw with Batman. At the same time though, there is a reason for that. To go back to the original point, this is a discussion about the motivation behind his want to screw with Batman.
Which is why he's not a featured Marvel character in many stories and no where near as iconic as Spider-Mans main rogues like Goblin, Venom, or King Pin. Stories with Carnage in them mostly just revolve around him being dangerous and our heroes have to stop him. That's not super interesting and gets stale quick. Not as interesting as say taking over the body of your mortal enemy just to become a better version of them like Doc Oc.
+Trump Voodoo Carnage gets caught up in a prophecy, which is said to ascend him by killing him. He gains new powers and goes around the world to try to figure out more on this ancient book (which apparently predicted him being the new ruler, even had a picture of him). Eddie Brock is in a task force sent to bring Carnage in, and uses the Toxin symbiote (Carnage spawn). It's pretty funny.
The Joker kills people because he wants people to suffer. He enjoys suffering. That's his motivation. Not complicated, but nothing wrong with it either. Also, I think one of the reasons the joker works so well and is so famous is because he is the opposite of Batman, and lack of thought out motivation is a part of that. Batman has tons and tons of motivations, he wants to protect his city, he wants to protect the Robins, which ties into the base motivation of his parents dying in that he wants to give them the family he never had (Dick especially, but this could be applied to the others as well, probably) etcetera etcetera. But the Joker's simplistic sadism flies in the face of Batman's order and reason. And now I've found myself back at the core of the Batman/Joker thing that makes them work so well as adversaries. Anyway I'm going to stop before I get ahead of myself. The moral of the story is, a lot more than just impactful motivations make a villain great and one of them is how they contrast their hero(s). And as such, complex motivations are not necessary for a good villain.
"The truth is that the Joker doesn't care about how many people die. He cares about how ridiculous the Batman truly is. He knows that Batman will never, ever take off his mask and he wants to have fun with this fact. And if Batman does get revealed, Gotham's reaction would be priceless. But think about it: here we have a man, not just any man, but a truly extraordinary individual. And that man is convinced he is a hero. A paragon of humanity, the only thing standing between Gotham and complete corruption. Yet this same individual is prioritizing his ability to run around in a giant kevlar Batsuit over the lives of the very individuals he swears he protects. Don't you think that's a little inconsistent? Let's be honest, here the two of us are and we're both a little crazy. Nobody does the things we do for any sane reason. But at least I'm consistent. I'm a man of principle. And that principle is my devotion to comedy. So let me tell you a joke, Batman. I'll warn you, it'll take a little while to get to the punchline, but I guarantee it'll be HILARIOUS the whole time. So here goes nothing: How many deaths is your mask worth, Batman?"
*This should have way more downvotes than it does.* The Joker is already recognized as the #1 villain in basically all comicbooks, DC or Marvel, and he's largely a mystery even till this day. I mean, just based on that alone you're argument is immediately debunked.
But Max...have YOU danced with the devil in the pale moon light?
Your profile pic makes this comment perfect.
The important thing to add is that motivation =/= backstory. Many movies over-explain mysterious characters, especially in prequels and sequels, and often ruin their charm in the process, when all they need are hints and suggestions. Hannibal Lecter is psychopath who sees people as toys to play with. That's his motivation, he doesn't need a stupid origin story about avenging his sister.
agreed. I think that's the most important distinction to make.
Hannibal's motivation was his eternal boredom.
There is plenty of motivation to hannibal lecter, even in the silence of the lambs. He Wants to control Clarice, he wants to escape, he loves the fear he inspires, and he in general wants to control people because he feels superior to them. That is motivation enough for a compelling character.
Then indeed there is the rest that expands on his twisted sense of ethics where he is judge to all being, and he decides who lives and who doesn't , and those who don't end up as dishes in lecter's plate.
Maxime Teppe You basically just elaborated on what I said. He sees people as a means of entertainment. All the world's a stage and he the director. If they're entertaining enough on their own, he doesn't attack them until provoked (Clarice, Will).
The thing is, you learn all of that about Lecter without knowing anything about his backstory. That's good character writing, because his traits come from his actions, not from exposition.
I agree generally that motivation is good for villains, but I still think someone without motivation can be scary and well written. People expect some sort of reason to things, so a nihilistic villain with no loyalties can be unsettling on a deep level, that to them you are just one of hundreds of people being killed, without a name. You're nothing to them and there is no meaning to you.
He may not care that he's killing people, but he in the end, he is killing people for a reason, even if it is to prove his nihilism or something like that
DScharts Murderous nihilists don't kill to prove anything, they find themselves free to do anything even if they don't know why they're doing it
Okay, but if you are free to kill and it means nothing to you, then why kill at all? Just to prove you can or that it means nothing to you? I feel like there is more to that motivation to kill then just nihilism.
Holy Mackerel the Third Thats already a motivation. A guy with no empathy, confused by himself, doing things for no reason because of his body's orders, which he doesn't understand.
Someone without motivation is depressed and doesn't do anything in reality so someone that does something with no motivation is purely fiction and boring
Man, I really enjoy your work and your storytelling, pitches, tips/advice and your movies. When I graduate in 2020 and go to film school, I really hope to work with you as I become an amateur director in a few years. You've inspired me to become a director and also inspired me to write a ton of pitches for movies. Thank you, Max Landis.
The beginning cracked me up. You went from 0 to 1000 in a split second.
In The Dark Knight he didn't have a back story but he had a purpose/goal. Which is a good way to go about it
I am far too distracted by the sheer amount of death occupying the wall behind you
B- Mask what the hell are you doing here B-man?
Totally agree with you, the joker is the exception to the rule.
The rule is that for an interesting villian, this one must have well rationalize intentions and complexities that move him forward.
The exceptions work because they are exceptional, not easy to make and ever so common. The Joker has had a history of excelent writers and artist giving him decades to evolve and sculpt himself to what we know today.
If you make a character and think that he will suddently become just as interesting as the Joker by making him crazy and shallow, you are wrong. Don't use the Joker as a cop-out.
Edit: Also "anything can be good if done well" is a non-answer. Of course anything can be good is done good. And anything can be wet if it is wet.
I love this. You're completely right.
All I'll say to any criticism on this is, the Killing Joke is widely lauded as the best Joker story, probably the best Batman story, and possibly one of the best comics of all time. The Killing Joke is also the one thing that came close to really giving the Joker some sick kind of audience sympathy, providing him with some form of motivation and emotion. And most ways I'd think of adapting it to any other medium would really strum on those parts of it rather than Batman wailing on him for a brief moment.
Mystery means "Don't say everything," not "Don't say anything."
Joker to the Kid: "I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?"
Kid: Hey, Joker relax I am just busting your balls here, jesus....Now go home and get your fucking shine box!
I remember seeing an Extra Credits video where they pointed out Joker works as a force of nature or an embodiment of chaos to narratively mirror Batman. Does this method of adding hints of backstory to such a character not diminish their impact as a "force of nature"?
Force of nature seems like a cop out to me
Not a literal force of nature. The way the Extra Credits vid describes it is more of a narrative frame that a particular type of trait hangs from.
+hollandscottthomas Oh yeah I get that. Just wondering if giving him this type of structure might take away from that effect.
+hollandscottthomas Oh yeah I get that. Just wondering if giving him this type of structure might take away from that effect.
+hollandscottthomas Oh yeah I get that. Just wondering if giving him this type of structure might take away from that effect.
I think that the real issue with trying to explain The Joker is the issue with trying to make a film adaptation of a very abstract novel: we've gone so long with lots of people having their own personal interpretations that there's no way for people to accept one interpretation as canon. The Joker is always going to be most accepted as what he is: somebody who very loosely follows an insane plan based on abstract motivations (such as exposing Batman as being like The Joker, or dragging society down to his level, or just creating general chaos to make the world something he is more comfortable living within) but if you bring in who he was that brings him to this point then most people reject it. This is even part of why in The Killing Joke they make sure to imply that the backstory they give is possibly just another thing he's made up, as there was no person before there was the force of nature that is The Joker.
It doesn't matter that his past is mysterious, all that matters is that somehow the world was capable of incubating something like who he ended up as and who he is is somebody horrifying. All of the best executions in the world of something that undoes that mystery will not be accepted simply because it's really not necessary and people have grown to have expectations that they don't want broken. A new character that is ostensibly The Joker but with a backstory could do very well, but it's just one of those things where there are too many pressures from the audience who are already full of preconceived notions about the character that they accept too hard to be willing to part with.
Chronicle was fantastic, 4 years later and I watched it on youtube with those foreign subtitles, totally worth it. Should have got the blu-ray for my first watch though. Great film max
The fact that everyone commenting has their own idea of what the Joker is to them is truly a testament to the character. He's one of the most mercurial figures in all of comics, and the fact that JUST ENOUGH is known about him facilitates numerous interpretations. We don't have to know his motivations verbatim. Rather, we know enough to interpret him the way we see fit. The same can be said for all the great writers that have handled him in numerous ways, a completely fluid counterpoint to the mostly static interpretation of Batman. In an eery way, he's an intimate character, in that most people taylor their view of him with their favorite version of the character combined with their experiences in life. Basically, when it comes to the Joker, we're all right, and we're all wrong.
This is why Nolan was spot on in the Dark Knight. Nolan's Joker HAS a motivation and its to usher in chaos. The way he gets there is where the mystery and suspense comes in.
See, that is the fundamental misunderstanding about the Joker. There is ALWAYS a reason behind why he does stuff even if he tells you there isn't. In the Dark Knight he wanted to prove that deep down people were just as horrible as he was. The Killing Joke is similar. He wants to prove that even somebody as good as Commissioner Gordon can become like him. In Death of the Family he is obsessed with returning things to the simplicity of when he first fought Batman. Just the two of them. The Joker is very much a chaotic character, but even chaos has a reason for why it is.
Well, that's what Max is saying. There's a reason whenever he's well written, like all well written villains. But the times when he's just ol' unpredictable Joker who does things just because, then it's uninteresting, and lazy writing. Something I'd agree with. And even when his intentions aren't outright stated, when well written, they are at the very least cleverly hinted at so that the reader/viewer can make the villains motives clear by themselves.
There's a difference between knowing someone's background and knowing their motivation that a lot of people miss. When Scott Snyder reintroduces Joker, he has a clear motivation: he wants to get under Batman's skin and he wants to prove their on an even intellectual playing field. It's intuitive, it add a sense of terror to the scene and you don't need to demystify Joker's origin for it to work.
Max Landis... Speaking the truth like always. Dropping knowledge.
Yes! Agree on all your opinions on comic book characters, I think.
I agree. That being said, if i were to accidently stumble into your work place and see your wall.... I would NOPE the fuck right out of there.
Villain motivation is one of the most difficult things to come up with when I'm writing.
Excellent advice!
I got nothing to add but to say that people who are enthralled with mysterious characters like Boba Fett or Joker (when he is written that way) live out their powerfantasies through them? And that is what makes them so popular even though they have the personality of a Goomba in SuperMario bros.
I like the message here, just not necessarily how it pertains to Joker. Joker does have motivations, lots of them -- the mystery of the character is littered with nuggets of enlightenment that make him more interesting. Frequently, his motivation boils down to an extremely perverse codependency and love for Batman, which IS very eerie. Good analysis, poor example.
no, it's the best example:
lots of people believe the joker has no motivation and take him as the poster child for mysterious character, when in fact, even if there is no certainty about his origin, we do (as you pointed out) have tons of informations about his motivations.
Fascination with batman, indeed. Chaos, in TDK, an exploration of what led him there in the killing joke, etc...
So peopl who take the joker as example of an empty character who just does terrible stuff for no reason just don't have understood the joker and how his motivations make him interesting.
I was always under the impression that the Joker just wants to entertain himself; especially the Mark Hamill renditions.
I feel like this ended too soon! Interesting stuff.
These are just a few motivations I've seen in the Joker, from different writers:
1. Entertainment (basically, treating and structuring his actions as gags, with horrified onlookers and victims as "tough crowd", trying to make them laugh but being the only one laughing because to everyone else his actions are horrific, not funny).
2. A desire to show other people that they are just as bad as he is on the inside (in a sense, he's going around accusing people of "virtue signaling" and trying to prove it by pushing people over the edge), especially Batman.
3. "Love" for Batman. Not in any healthy sense, but on some level, he's got a huge crush on Batman. If Harley Quinn is present in these stories, her crush on the Joker is entirely unrequited. He won't even look at her. He's too preoccupied with courting (plotting against) Batman.
Insecurity easily plays into all of these in some way. So I'd say yeah, insecurity as a major motivator for the Joker makes total sense. However, I don't think that means he needs a concrete backstory to explain exactly where that insecurity comes from. The idea of the insecure comedian is universal enough not to need much explaining. It often comes with the territory.
I agree, but Joker DOES have a motive: he's motivated by a twisted sense of humor and an insatiable compulsion to act out the desires that we restrain (or simply don't have).
Speaking of Joker, are you excited for Suicide Squad or just..meh? Personally I'm really interested in the movie because it looks unique and fun
LoL. just finish watching the killing joke before clicking on this video. completely agree max.
Hi Max. I've heard you say , in "Regarding Clark" for instance, that you like movies where character drives story. I'm not sure I understand what this means. Is that what you're talking about in this video? Could you explain this?
I'm no expert, but I think "character drives story" means that characters' motivations and interactions move the story forward rather than the situations that the characters are put into. In this video, Max is saying that characters' actions and interactions have to make sense based on their individual motivations. Therefore, we must understand their motivations (at least a little bit) in order to move the story forward organically. Otherwise, we won't care about the characters and we won't care about the story.
It means that he doesn't like movies where characters do things for the sole purpose of moving the story along. Like how a character might betray the hero just because he needs someone to fight in the third act.
Joker is quite a tuff one in my opinion.
Sure everything he does has motivation and passion, and thats why we all love him.
but the motivation itself is often described pretty crypticly. I feel that everything he does is for the general spreading of chaos and anarchy and the amusement that comes from the act. He loves to invade and play with peoples minds and he wants people to remember and maybe even emulate him, as sort of his legacy. And for me thats enough of a motivation.
The thing is: The comics did a great job to make his origin pretty vague, and imo that is great (The dark knight also did it). Over time the Joker has evolved to more than just a character for better or worse, he became a complete antithesis to the good in people. So it is just fitting to not totally specify where his crazyness came from because it can come from many places. For the Joker to be the embodiment of insanity and evil, you have to be really careful to ground him all too much.
I believe the Killing Joke said it the best, where he couldn't really remember why he turned out that way but figured that he might have just "one bad day".
The Joker's weakness is his insecurity. The Joker, ironically, does not like people laughing at him. This was in The Dark Knight, ("I'm not crazy, I'm NOT,") in Batman Beyond, ("Don't you dare laugh at me!") and in Infinite Crisis, where he kills the Royal Flush Gang member for making fun of him. ("Don't you get it? The Joker's too wild!")
I completely agree. thats why I like Green Goblin, Kingpin, and Dr.Doom as villains far more than Joker.
The way I see it is that the Joker wants to notice him and to see him as a crazy individual desperately needing attention, and he finds it mostly through Batman, because he's brave enough to antagonize him.
I think a problem with the Joker, is when he says that he is doing things for the sake of choas, people it it up. The thing with Joker is that he can't be trusted, not even beyond the fourth wall. His motivations are often understated, and have to be read into.
This is like his argument with TFA, "it's boring because of X". But really, "boring" is so vague and subjective that trying to establish some kind of rule is about it is counterproductive. Many people like The Joker as "nihilistic", "does stuff for fun", that's why they write it that way.
Are there any incarnations from Joker that show a properly motivated character?
So, are you saying that the Joker is a boring character or are you saying that the Joker's motives *do* have meaning but it's often overlooked because of his general description as a "force of nature" or "embodiment of chaos" ?
Take a comic like Death of the Family were the whole premise seems to be Joker trying to start over to a simpler and easier time with Batman, from my observation Joker does have a lot of issues but I'm wondering if that's what you're trying to explain or not.
How is it that you can do that. I'm sitting here in my room just saying, "holy shit." Wow, I don't think I have thought of it that way before. Max Landis ladies and Gents out here saying shit that makes my little writer heart giggle.
I think there's a balance to this. Make someone too relatable, and you risk removing the urgency behind the character, or making the character wimpy. But if he's not relatable enough, he's not a character anymore, but a plot device. It's possible to make a "force of nature" villain without reducing their personalities to that of a natural disaster. As I see it, the best way to make a character like the Joker scary is not by revealing nothing about him, because that is not a mystery. We need to see a glimpse for us to know that there even is a mystery to begin with. Give people a glimpse of how he ticks, why he does what he does, and make him relatable enough to where the reader can imagine him- or herself in his skin, but make us uncomfortable when we do. The key behind the Joker should always be that he was once a normal human like anyone else, that any of us could be the Joker if pushed to the limit.
I am curious to see what DC are doing with the Joker in 'Rebirth'. They're telling us there have been three Jokers. This could either be a terrible development, or a great one. If all it serves is to completely exhaust the backstory of the Joker, it could potentially ruin the character for a long time to come. If they're doing it just to be able to make previous backstorys, like the one told in 'The Killing Joke' definitive canon, while still keeping the past of the current joker a mystery, I don't know how to feel. I prefer leaving that up to the reader to interpret how they like. Lastly, if they are doing it for the purpose of opening up even more questions about the Joker; to give us just a little bit more insight, only for us to realise the mystery was even bigger than we thought, that I am all for.
If we overexplain, and leave nothing up to the reader, the character becomes less engaging. But likewise, if we're given nothing to work with, we have *nothing* to engage with. That is my take on this, anyway.
When I saw Suicide Squad's Joker operating the way he did, as well as actually having motivation and intelligence beyond unpredictability with the power he had and the fear he operated out of, I instantly thought of this video.
I prefer Scarface Joker as opposed to Being unpredictable for the sake of being unpredictable Joker ^_^
I'd say MOST characters need motivation, but Joker is an embodiment of chaos, therefore he can have some wiggle room. He's not an engaging character BECAUSE he has mysterious motivations, he's engaging IN SPITE of them.
You are super duper awesome!
nice to hear your take on the jokeron a side note, I was wondering if you ever heard of this new character in marvel called cryptomnesia from the Hercules series(Which is a Great series by the way) who is like the "God of Social Media" that fans are saying kind of resembles you(at least with the hair part)
I dunno. I have the same emotional reaction of "Joker shot a kid" as "Joker shot a kid because it was making him insecure".
Mystery is useful. Inexplicable actions have a tendency to get people asking, "Why" and thinking deeper about a narrative. It's not necessarily good or bad - it just gets them thinking. You have to be careful, because people are smart and they will think through you if you're not careful. If you haven't layered it smartly enough, you endanger your writing because you are inviting scrutiny. Meanwhile some people don't want to think that deeply and they find it annoying.
Mystery's just another component in that inexplicable brew. I'd consider this line, ""But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die". Famous Johnny Cash line. Though he explains his motivation, it is still inexplicable and cyclical - he doesn't really know "why". Life is mystery, if there wasn't another mystery around the corner, we wouldn't keep turning them. Curiosity is the most human trait - as such it's a potent narrative device. Not good or bad. Just potent. It's compelling, but that can be grating or satisfying. For instance the spinning top in Inception drives people nuts, but.... it also encourages others to look deeper into the narrative and realize there is no objective way to determine whether or not he is in a dream. It divides audiences because it's a powerful narrative device - but it can blow up in your face too.
I thought the Joker's ultimate motivation was to make Batman laugh?
One version of him. Been others
Joker's version in the Nolan films seems to be about forcing batman to break his one rule of killing someone and make him go off the deep end.
Actually that's very much a recurring theme of his character.
Really the Joker does have a motivation and it is very much getting Batman to see "the funny side" as it were. Of course just how deep this goes depends on the writer. Some do it beautifully like Alan Moore in the Killing Joke which, in a sense essentially recreated the character, some take it too far by basically making the joker in love with Batman,like in outsiders volume 3 where Lex Luthor pisses off the Joker by stating the rather obvious fact that Batman loves Catwoman and not him, and some don't even make it a thing at all, or at least don't present it very well, this mostly happens in the more child friendly media where hes after money or... well nothing I guess.
The Joker is a modern variant of the Vice, which is generally defined as a type of villain who gloats to the audience (House Of Cards being a recent example), but it's significant that the archetype is directly descended from medieval dramatic portrayals of the Devil (as an evil deceiver), which the Joker takes in a slightly different direction. For example, when he lures Harley Quinn to the path of evil, it's well understood by the audience that he's completely beyond redemption and is only manipulating her; gloating would be detrimental to the overall effect. To put it another way, the Joker is the kind of character who would pretend that his insecurity motivated him to kill a kid, to purposely magnify its perceived horror.
To a point, I agree. But not in all cases. Especially in the case of something like the shark in Jaws or the Terminator, or the nazis in Raiders. Those villains are not interesting on their own, and they don't need to be. Even Darth Vader in the original Star Wars had very little development. He was just a stooge who ran around and did evil stuff because it was his job. We didn't get any real meat to his character until the next 2 movies. You just have to figure out where your story's entertainment value is coming from and put the emphasis in the right place. Raiders would not be a better movie if we had 30 minutes devoted to developing Belloq more. He exists to be a foil for Indy, and he works fine for that purpose.
The Shark in Jaws isn't a villain, it's a monster. It does not need a
motivation.
The Terminator is a literal killing machine, but being more complex than
a shark, it kind of needs a motivation, which we know: it is
programmed to kill Sarah Connor so that the machines can win the war
before it starts (technically this is Skynet's motivation, but since
Skynet created and programmed the T-800 in the first film, this its
motivation, as well).
We know the Nazis' motivation in Raiders: they want an unstoppable
weapon to conquer the world, which Belloq has convinced them is the Ark
of the
Covenant.
We know Belloq's motivation: He wants the Ark (Hitler might not even
know
about it) because he's an archaeologist and it's the archeological find
of a lifetime, of many lifetimes, but possibly more important than that
is that he wants Indiana Jones to know that he's better than him. That
much is established at the beginning of the movie in Peru.
In the original Star Wars, we know Vader's motivations, too: Vader
wants the plans, so that the Death Star can be protected and so that the
Rebellion can be defeated. He leads the Tie Fighter squadron during
the Rebels' attack on the Death Star for the same reason. He also wants
to show his former Master, Obi-Wan, that he has surpassed him by beating
him in a duel to the death.
Motivation and 30 minutes or three whole movies of unnecessary and
boring character development aren't necessarily the same thing.
+Jason Todd Exactly this. If you're going to provide examples to make some kind of counter-argument, don't provide examples that are easily debunked.
Jason Todd Yeah, those are their motivations for why they're after that specific Macguffin in the story. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about giving them more depth and dimension beyond just "I need this thing because X, Y, and Z." I'm talking about the motivation behind the superficial motivation. Yes, the Nazis want the Ark so that they can take over the world, but the movie doesn't go into the philosophy of Nazism or anything like that. There's not a lot of attempts at getting into psyche of these villains and explaining how they got to this point in their lives. Why the Nazis want to take over the world isn't relevant, so it isn't brought up. There's no attempt at making them interesting people the way, say, Inglorious Basterds does.
That's all I'm saying. Maybe the point got lost the way I explained it and maybe it's not even what the video is about. But it's something I've always thought about.
+Stephen Leotti That's because in a movie like Inglorious Basterds, we know the Nazi's motivation based on world fucking history. once again, totally irrelevant argument.
***** But even if you didn't, there's that whole scene at the beginning with Waltz' character talking about why he's doing what he's doing. We understand who he is as a person and what brought him to this point in his life. His motivation goes beyond "Because he's evil." He's more complex than most film Nazis. And that's fine, because it's a different kind of story from Raiders. Different kinds of stories require different kinds of characters.
To be fair one of if not the most famous and noteworthy versions of the Joker did have motivations. The Joker from the Dark Knight is motivated by chaos for its own sake as a means of revenge on society. While not being given a clear backstory its implied he is a soldier suffering from ptsd. His trauma from being a soldier made him something else. (someone else? ok wrong dc property) His main point in that movie is to show that a mans moral compass is only as good as there situation. Whether its trying to get both Batman and Harvey Dent to kill him or give regular Gothamites the option to blow up a boat so they can live. In fact these motivations to show people can go wrong if pushed stem from The Killing Joke. The Joker does have motivations.
The Joker is an unusual case because he's actually a very conflicted character, even if it's not made obvious to the readers. In his heart he's a nihilist who finds life to be pointless and actions to be meaningless. However, he also holds a fanatical obsession for a "hero" who tries to prevent the inevitable (chaos, death, a surrender from reason/logic, etc.) One the one hand he holds no value in society, yet on the other hand, he tries so desperately to prove to everyone that Batman is equally or more crazy than him for presuming that he could make a significant difference to an unrelentingly sick world. At least that's how I make sense of him.
Is that last part in a Batman story you're writing, Max?
U should do a "30mins thoughts" video on Suicide Squad, Jared Leto, the future of joker, etc.
Interesting POV and agree.. but that was my main problem with the villain in American Ultra. He just felt so flat and pointless. Like he was just there to fill the void of the needed conflict, when all the other characters felt great. It was this black hole that emptied the movie too much for me to really care about the rest of it.
What about Anton Chigurh? I think he's one of the rare exceptions, probably just cause the Coens wrote him and they seem to be unable to write boring characters
he personifies the evil that has taken over the XX century and that tommy lee jones character can't understand, he has no motivations because he's a force, not a person
He has motivation, being all his rules that are subtlely planted in the movie.
I thought his motivation was "do the job" and was ruthlessly/myopically effective at it.
That moment when fucking Ralph is on the right
Oh are you kidding? His motivations are completely laid out. All he wants to do is kill. And not just kill, he is bound by his own fucked up moral compass to kill you. He killed Brolin's wife out of a threat he gave to a dead man, then uses his odd coin ritual as the best amendment he can give her to live. This is all mysterious, but clearly motivated and far more terrifying than a man simply killing without purpose.
We do sympathize with him although tenuously. Can you remember in tdk when he keeps on asking, You want to know where I got this scars? And then he gives an answer on the lines of his father did it to him or it was because of his wife. These were some of the more intense scenes in the movie. He may have been bullshitting all along but somehow it makes us see him as a victim of abuse.
Joker's motivation is to torment Batman, ideally driving him insane.
I find it incredible hard to ever disagree with you
Heath Ledger's Joker had pretty clear motivations: anarchy and pyrotechnics. Because some people just want to see the world burn...
I've always thought of it like this. An antagonist that just kills and when caught and is asked why they killed, they reply "Wrong place, wrong time...It could have been anyone. They just happened to be walking passed" That to me is scary. They didn't really kill for no reason, but the reason they did kill is convenience.
I realise that is really poorly written. My writing skills have decided to go on vacation today.
Joker in fact has to motivations, because he finds it funny and to push batma, because that would be funny to him
I think you're right overall max. Still, I always feel like joker is necessary to the batman mythos (I'd argue maybe a two face is closer to his greatest failure but I digress.) to be incredibly cliched and oversimplifying about it, the other batman villians are all little Bruces he tries to stop from their own personal tragedies, while joker is the darkness (joe chill) in the alley (metaphorically cause it's dumb to make joker=joe chill literally)
Well, you have a point there
now I gotta look thru your videos to see if you've talked about your views on the Harley/Joker relationship. that's what this video was related to, anyway, right?
Obviously, there's a subtextual relationship between the Joker & Batman in The Dark Knight. The Joker's methods may seem random, but they're predicated , for whatever reason, on his hatred of Batman. His "chaos" is dependent on involvement, response, & interaction w/Batman. We, as the audience, can imagine a thousand reasons (& have) a person would incidentally hate Batman & dedicate their persona to this hatred. The collateral-damage of Batman's crime-fighting would arbitrarily propagate new "villains" all the time.
I thought the killing joke address his psychology quite well that and death of the family to a smaller extent
1000% correct.
Based on your writing of Joker/Superman I would argue that you don't "get" The Joker. He is the arch villain of the ultimate detective. He is not Moriarty, that would be too simple. He's about as smart/conniving as Moriarty but also as chaotic as comedy itself. To him stealing a child's report card knowing that their parents will never believe that happened, is an equal victory to killing Jason Todd.
Joker would never come to Metropolis just to plant bombs, he would aim to make Superman look foolish. At very least they would've been set in the shape of a happy face(and then one just placed vaguely middle-ish by his henchmen, even he doesn't know where it is).
But what is the motive for the photos behind you?
As for your example: I would actually be more shocked if he shot that kid without a specific reason ... well at least not out of insecurity. To me, Joker might be more than unbalanced, but in no incarnation I could ever see a scared insecure Joker work. That is a man (or whatever he is) who is ready to die in any second without having regrets whatsoever. The most fun with this character comes from the fact that he is unpredictable and insecurity would make him predictable.
when's the sequel for Jane LA coming out?
Well put.
I mean I think the point of the Joker is to be an embodiment of chaos. Because when you compare a man who does the impossible on a daily basis just because his parents died to a guy who does horrible things for no reason at all, that does create an interesting conversation.
But yeah Joker is way overused and often misused.
I have a big problem with writing villains, because I always end up giving them a logical reason for every action they take which makes them more human and less menacing. I am internally reluctant to give character a purely detestable motivation because I guess I don't understand the reason for it.
What is the point of making a villain, other than satisfying a human's fantasy that all the evil you face can be condensed into one being and gotten rid of by one gunshot?
The Joker being described as not having motivations is the childish interpretation of The Joker. It's like all those people who reduce Harley Quinn to a manic pixie dream girl who happens to kill people sometimes. The characters are much deeper and complex and more interesting than that.
Well said.
Max I was hoping to see if you watch the ultimate edition bvs cut I hated the movie but i watched it and I changed my mind on it they took out major plot points
Anton Chigurh...drops the mic
"That might be terrible" - Maybe, yeah XD
But why Joker works where other characters written without motivations don't is that with him there's always the ability to infer. When he's talking about his ideology to Batman or interacting with other characters like Harley you can examine it and start to imagine why he's saying the things that he's saying or doing the things that he's doing, and where that stems from, and any and every possibility is awful. With characters that are just boring and bland they just have nothing to them, there's no intention behind anything they do, with good Joker stories there's always that intention.
i usually agree with you but this is bull.
hannibal lecter (silence of the lambs), darth vader (before the prequels) and the joker (the dark knight or any animated dc movies) all have one thing in common they are all the best villains in hollywood and we knew little/nothing about them
oh shit SKELETONS
You're to a degree and to a degree you are wrong. The Joker proves the latter. The Joker is one big mystery. His motivations are about as clear as flood water. We know virtually nothing of his motivation other than "just because" and yet here he is one of the most popular characters in existence.
Him being some emo kid, or some abuses child, or a "victim" of affluenza would not make him compelling.
Some characters motivations to their evil work well and help to develop said character.
Magneto as a Holocaust survivor adds to his character. Lex and his distrust/obsession/jealousy of Superman adds to his but sometimes there are characters that exist just because. That's what makes them scary. It's like being near a wild dog. You don't know if it's going to attack or ignore you.
The second you give a a reason for, you give a way for the character to seek redemption. Then you have that character turn, or try to turn good, they team up with the good guy and then they either stay good, or an anti-hero, or they go back to being bad and that gets old. If I want to see a villain go from bad to good to bad to good over and over, duping the good guy every time I'd watch protesting.
Like I said, a cause for motivation is a good character trait to have, but for some characters, like the Joker, the mystery is what works best. So as a writer you can have in your head "this is why he's doing it" to help you write a good story. But keep it in your head and keep the audience in the dark...not that I'm telling you what to do.
What about stories like "Soft Targets"?
Or heck what about Laughing Fish? Joker's Five-Way Revenge sort of works with what your discussing, but otherwise it would seem like you are trying to humanize Joker in ways that aren't there. Isn't Joker's main motivation for everything to Defeat Batman?
I don't think any main character's motivation, villain or hero(ine), necessarily has to be flush known, BUT I will say that it has to at least somewhat suggested, which can be engaging too. Sometimes a more subtle clue or hint as to the motivation can get the audience thinking they've got a shot at predicting the character's motivation. So yeah, I agree with ya, but a little mystery is good too and more engaging. Definitely "zero" motivation is zero interesting.
I almost agree, but then again it kind of has to be fleshed out. Case in point Lex from the new BvS. There are definitely hints, ideas, and some reason for why he does what he does, but since it isn't clear or fleshed out he is forgettable and why so many made him a major talking point of why the film didn't work. Now a character like Hannibal who's motivations are never clear because he has being a true sociopath still far more interesting in all his incarnations because each action he takes, no matter how out of place or strange/disturbing, is established to be that of something unique. Had they not made it clear who was Hannibal or mental state in Silence of the Lambs, he would not be such a stand out part of the film, completely overshadowing the real antagonist of the film Buffalo Bill
Joe Mondragon I use the term "flush" from boxing terminology meaning "in your face." As you can tell, I have a bias toward subtlety when it come to film. So we agree there, it seems. Unfortunately, I have to counter your comment by saying, story-wise, I think Lex was a more interesting character than Hannibal. I was young and perhaps need to go back and watch Silence of.Lambs movie again but from my recollection, I think Hopkin's acting is what made the character appear appealing and interesting (which can happen too: a good actor making an otherwise dull character seem interesting) for some and others, not me. I liked this incarnation of Lex. I think people who didn't were comic book loyalists who went into the BvS movie with their own preconceived notions of how Lex should be. I will say that the BvS timeline was wacky a bit: having a young Lex with an older Bruce Wayne (and Batman) with a blossoming Clark Kent (and Superman)? Weird.
Max Landis is The Joker.
Deep.
I never really liked the Joker for those reasons. The Jack Nicholson version is probably the most interesting version we've gotten.
left shoulder bad, right shoulder good..........( the sauce is in the middle).......
Uhh hey great vid in sorta first
boring is subjective
found the other him.
Well Joker does have a motivation.. and its to totally fuck with Batman
That's a goal not motivation.
Isn't that the same thing?
+OJWH no that's motivation. A goal would be to help batman lose 10 pounds, save for joker school, or finally get that threesome with Ivy.
Joe Mondragon No, it is a goal. He wants to screw with Batman - that is an aim of his. But why? He does some things in particular with that aim in mind but there's still the question of why he has that aim.
It's like the Riddler's aim is to prove himself to be cleverer than Batman. But again, why?
Hm. I've just realised that in both cases what I'm calling aims also class as motivations.
A motivation is a reason for acting a certain way. So if the Joker does something dramatic you can say he's motivated by the want to screw with Batman. At the same time though, there is a reason for that.
To go back to the original point, this is a discussion about the motivation behind his want to screw with Batman.
0:47 So you're saying that if you ain't got sauce then you're lost? I feel you forget to mention that you can get lost in the sauce.
Then there's Carnage in Marvel (Cletus Kassady) who kills for fun. No rhyme or reason. He sees a living thing, he kills it.
Which is why he's not a featured Marvel character in many stories and no where near as iconic as Spider-Mans main rogues like Goblin, Venom, or King Pin. Stories with Carnage in them mostly just revolve around him being dangerous and our heroes have to stop him. That's not super interesting and gets stale quick. Not as interesting as say taking over the body of your mortal enemy just to become a better version of them like Doc Oc.
The only reason Carnage was made was to capitalize on the Symbiote craze and to get Spider-Man and Venom to team up to fight him. Meh.
To be fair though, his comic series is pretty entertaining. >_
It is? I haven't read it. What happens in it?
+Trump Voodoo Carnage gets caught up in a prophecy, which is said to ascend him by killing him. He gains new powers and goes around the world to try to figure out more on this ancient book (which apparently predicted him being the new ruler, even had a picture of him). Eddie Brock is in a task force sent to bring Carnage in, and uses the Toxin symbiote (Carnage spawn). It's pretty funny.
The Joker kills people because he wants people to suffer. He enjoys suffering. That's his motivation. Not complicated, but nothing wrong with it either. Also, I think one of the reasons the joker works so well and is so famous is because he is the opposite of Batman, and lack of thought out motivation is a part of that. Batman has tons and tons of motivations, he wants to protect his city, he wants to protect the Robins, which ties into the base motivation of his parents dying in that he wants to give them the family he never had (Dick especially, but this could be applied to the others as well, probably) etcetera etcetera. But the Joker's simplistic sadism flies in the face of Batman's order and reason. And now I've found myself back at the core of the Batman/Joker thing that makes them work so well as adversaries. Anyway I'm going to stop before I get ahead of myself. The moral of the story is, a lot more than just impactful motivations make a villain great and one of them is how they contrast their hero(s). And as such, complex motivations are not necessary for a good villain.
"The truth is that the Joker doesn't care about how many people die. He cares about how ridiculous the Batman truly is. He knows that Batman will never, ever take off his mask and he wants to have fun with this fact. And if Batman does get revealed, Gotham's reaction would be priceless. But think about it: here we have a man, not just any man, but a truly extraordinary individual. And that man is convinced he is a hero. A paragon of humanity, the only thing standing between Gotham and complete corruption. Yet this same individual is prioritizing his ability to run around in a giant kevlar Batsuit over the lives of the very individuals he swears he protects. Don't you think that's a little inconsistent? Let's be honest, here the two of us are and we're both a little crazy. Nobody does the things we do for any sane reason. But at least I'm consistent. I'm a man of principle. And that principle is my devotion to comedy. So let me tell you a joke, Batman. I'll warn you, it'll take a little while to get to the punchline, but I guarantee it'll be HILARIOUS the whole time. So here goes nothing: How many deaths is your mask worth, Batman?"
ytubeanon What's that from?
www.reddit.com/r/batman/comments/22bol6/udreamypants_explains_the_jokers_motivation_from/
That is a goal not motivation. Motivation is why not what.
OJWH The motivation is to reach the goal,.
Bars.
they need to bring back money hungry joker.
Why? Money's the motivator for so many characters already.
*This should have way more downvotes than it does.*
The Joker is already recognized as the #1 villain in basically all comicbooks, DC or Marvel, and he's largely a mystery even till this day. I mean, just based on that alone you're argument is immediately debunked.
I liked more when Wolverine pass was a mystery
Yeah, definitely a tough task to emotionally ground an extreme, murderous, nihilist philosopher doing performance art.