Chaos vs. Order:
“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos” these are the famous words of the Joker in the film The Dark Knight (Knight). The major theme in this film is the never-ending battle between chaos and order, and the effects this battle has on those who are involved. This theme is shared amongst many movies, and two great examples of this are The Dark Knight and V for Vendetta. In both films there is an established order for the location, but when the Joker and V are introduced, extreme changes quickly proceed. These two characters are the embodiments of chaos in their respective films, but they are represented in two completely different ways. In The Dark Knight, the Joker is viewed
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as a villain for his actions, while in V for Vendetta, V is seen as a hero who brings about revolution. In these films, both V and the Joker produce chaos in violent and destructive ways.
However, the Joker mainly threatens the lives of Gotham City citizens to make the film’s protagonists, Batman and Harvey Dent, embrace the chaos like him. Batman and Dent represented order to the city of Gotham, and if they both turned to chaos, the city would be defeated. By orchestrating numerous killings and threats, the Joker evoked an unparalleled fear from the citizens of Gotham, and with that fear came chaos. The same citizens who embraced Batman as the hero of their city quickly turned against him when people were killed, and by doing so, slowly converted on their path away from order and into chaos. The Joker also brought the battle into the political world. At the time, all of Gotham’s largest crime organizations were about to be thrown in jail, but due to the murders of the judge and police commissioner heading the case, there was no way to safely finish the trial. By doing this, the Joker overwhelmed Harvey Dent, the district attorney, and prevented all of the criminals he fought to imprison from going to jail. In the end, the Joker was not able to transform Batman, but he did succeed with Harvey Dent. Dent succumbed to the chaos and took the lives of a half dozen people in the process. To prevent the Joker from turning the entire city into chaos, Batman was forced to take responsibility for Dent’s actions. Though Batman had fallen in the eyes of the city, Dent was still viewed …show more content…
as a hero and ultimately preserved the order in Gotham (Knight). V’s methods for producing chaos, on the contrary, involved the destruction of iconic government buildings and the deaths of numerous members of the government.
In this film V, the anti-hero, is attempting to bring down the totalitarian government, and his way of doing so is with chaos. By provoking chaos, V intended to give the power of their country back to the people, and eliminate the oppressive government. His first action to do so in V for Vendetta, is bombing a court building on Guy Fawkes Night. The government responds to this by televising a broadcast explaining that the demolition was scheduled, but V commandeers the transmission and claims full responsibility. While on the air, V encourages the citizens of the United Kingdom to stand up against their government with him, and that he will destroy the House of Parliament in exactly one year. Throughout the next year V moved on to eliminate key political figures who began the totalitarian government, and as the next Guy Fawkes Night approached, preparation for the bombing began. Large shipments of Guy Fawkes masks were distributed to the public to make regular citizens appear as V, who also wore a mask. This provoked dozens of deaths and enraged the citizens of the United Kingdom, who responded with further rebellion. Finally on the one-year mark, V held true to his promise and bombed the House of Parliament, symbolizing the end of order
(Vendetta). Despite the separate ways that each character attempted to bring forth chaos, both the Joker and V shared that common goal. Where they differed was how they manipulated the public in order to achieve chaos. The Joker used fear to control the public, and while this worked for the majority of the movie, towards the end this fear finally ran out. Whereas V encouraged the citizens of the United Kingdom to stand up and fight for themselves. V’s tactic took a longer time to achieve the desired results, but ultimately ended up accomplishing the task. Their two methods made the difference of how each character was viewed by the public in their film. Since the Joker targeted the citizens of Gotham, they viewed him as a villain (Knight). Unlike V, who was seen as a hero for what he started (Vendetta). Both of these characters used their anarchic ideas in order to wage a war with those who are in control, but this war cost V his life and the Joker a life in prison. As their methods for producing chaos varied, so did their final punishments. Even though the chaos rampaged for periods of time in both movies, the end result was the chaos reverting back to order. This theme shows that while order or chaos may last for periods of time, these states are only temporary. Much like yin and yang, chaos cannot exist without order, and the line between the two is often thinner than one would think.
V for Vendetta is a great movie to watch in Civics class. It is a perfect film to discuss issues related to civics as it talks about citizen’s duty to overthrow corruption and more. As it is set against the ‘futuristic landscape of a totalitarian Britain’, this story focuses on a young working-class woman named Evey. In the event of being in a life-death situation, she meets V who rescues her. V makes her realize that she has the potential to do anything she desires and discovers the truth about herself as well as V. This movie is covered with various relations to Civics.
It has been eight years since the ending of the previous movie, The Dark Knight. At the end of this movie, Batman took the blame for the people killed by Harvey Dent, the district attorney who set out a war against crime. During The Dark Knight, crime had decreased dramatically because of him and Batman. Numerous criminals were placed in prison because of him. Therefore, Batman took the blame for his murders because he understood that a discovery of Harvey Dent’s killings would allow the numerous criminals that he imprisoned to be set free.
The ability to make a difference is itself a difference between these fictional worlds. Orwell’s government is a self-perpetuating machine, and the steps are already in place to ensure its continued existence no matter who is in charge or what the political climate becomes; there is no single head that can be severed from a seat of power to disable or cripple that government. Winston and Julia try to be more than just victims of their environment but ultimately fail, because one person, two people, or even a revolution cannot undo the system. Society’s participation in that government is marginalized to the point that it makes no difference who opposes it. In contrast, Moore’s fascist state is run by a single man atop the pyramid of power, and when he is toppled, there is no one in a clear position to assume control. Evey and V are successful in their opposition, because in the world of V for Vendetta, one man can make a difference, even if that difference is only to serve as an inspiration for others to make their own differences.
Interestingly, the movie puts a twist on the the true Batman origin. By having the Joker create Batman by killing Bruce’s parents, the Batman was created to avenge evil. This being said, the traumatic experience has created a hero whose definition of justice is left to the character’s moral. Traumatized, it is clear that the Batman seeks revenge not only because the Joker murdered his parents, but also for interfering with love interest Vicki Vale. By putting Vicki Vale at risk, the Batman’s traumatic experience is tested to the limits. The origins of Batman describes a hero who will not kill, yet in this movie, the Batman easily slaughters villains with a machine gun while flying his plane. A Batman who is willing to kill cannot be justified but is seen as justified to the character as a permanent way to resolve his traumatic experience with the Joker. In the climax of the movie, Batman is hanging on the edge with Vicki Vale. Instead of just saving Vicki, Batman interferes with the Joker’s escape which ultimately leads to the Joker’s death. Through Bruce’s eyes justice was the Joker’s death when he could have just saved Vicki. Although this movie was the most entertaining, it depicts a hardened character faced with the true reality of life. Not all heroes can be pure, and this movie explicitly shows this through Bruce’s actions. Notably, Bruce
As is common in Nolan's films, the leading male characters are driven by their need to get the job done. If the audience has seen others of Nolan's works, they will begin to assume that this man will be more important to the film than just a guy who pulls off a bank heist. This idea evolves through the movie with this character, The Joker, as he is definitely motivated by his desire to finish what he started. This shows when he gets worried at the end of the film when the boat of citizens fails to blow up the boat of convicts and vice versa.
V for Vendetta is a graphic novel written by Alan Moore in the late 1980's. The novel takes place in an alternate reality; one in which Britain is ruled by a fascist government that rules over Britain, and the rest of the world is believed to be in ruins due to nuclear war. The main protagonist/villain, depending on your viewpoint, of the story is a man simply called "V". He is a mysterious man and a self-described anarchist who survived a government experiment at a compound called Batch 5. Although his face is never shown in the book, V still draws the reader’s attention by being such a dark presence.
James Holmes went to see the film The Dark Night Rises. He was in the theatre for twenty minutes, left, then came back with full tactical gear on and weapons in hand. He shot smoke and gas canisters on innocent bystanders in the theatre. He then shot into the crowd. He killed twelve people and wounded another seventy people. When he was taken the police station they asked for his name. He identified himself as “The Joker,” the main villain in the movie. James Holmes clearly saw the movie and imitated the
Batman (Christian Bale) is hoping to hand on his crime fighting duties to D.A Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) yet when Batman’s cards are on the table the twisted mastermind who goes by the name of the joker (Heath Ledger), forces the masked vigilante to go against everything he ever stood for.
Smoke billows out from a Manhattan skyscraper, damaged by a fiery explosion. This could easily be a scene from 9/11, however we see Batman looking grimly on as a poster advertises the film will be released soon. Clearly this film plays on the fears of terrorism. As depicted in The Dark Knight, the Joker plays the terrorist, while Gotham’s leadership struggles to contain him. The film departs from the superhero ideals of pure good versus pure evil, showing a murky world where moral decisions have to be made in order to stop evil. Because of this, The Dark Knight seems to be an allegory for the War on Terrorism. This paper will look at how the Joker represents terrorism, while Batman represents George Bush and his administration’s War on Terror.
Batman and police commissioner James Gordon try to rid the Gotham of organized crime while combating the rise of the menacing and terrorizing psychopath villain, the Joker. (uci.edu) It’s important to take notice of the other clowns featured throughout the movie as well as their roles in the heist. This is crucial and singles the Joker out as the odd man.
When comics were first coming out, they were not all that popular but in todays’ world, they have become very popular and well known. Several of these comics have been turned into films, which is one of the many reasons why the popularity has been rising over the years. One of the most well known comics is Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. This comic was composed and released in 1986 by Frank Miller. With the usage of Frank Miller’s powerful, intense lines and the artwork done by Klaus Janson’s and Lynn Varley’s it has elevated this comic up to the very top of mainstream comics. In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the skillful illustrations on the pages successfully create the thought that there are underlying meanings, which makes the atmosphere a very intense one throughout the comic. The work of art that is presented on the pages in this comic are embedded in such a way that the pages become the continuum for the meaning. One of the main themes that are imbedded on the pages through the artwork in this book is the ideological struggle between Bruce Wayne and Batman.
In Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, the strongest conflict is an internal conflict that is most prominently shown in Marlow and Kurtz. This conflict is the struggle between their image of themselves as civilized human beings and the ease of abandoning their morality once they leave society. This inability has a close resemblance to the chaos theory. This is shown through the contrast of Kurtz as told by others and the actuality of him and through the progression of Marlow's character throughout Heart of Darkness.
Why so serious? If I were to ask you that question six months ago, you wouldn’t understand the phrase. Now that The Dark Knight has been made though, most people will understand what I am talking about. Ever since The Dark Knight was created, the joker has been thrust back into the public eye. Most people only know the joker from the performances of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Jack Nicholson in the 1989 film Batman. Most people forget that the Joker has been a villain since 1940 in Batman #1 (spring edition). The Joker has been reinvented every decade since his first appearance. He started off as a homicidal maniac, then a criminal that was just a harmless nuisance to becoming a mass murdering, schizophrenic clown that we know today. He has been named number one on the Wizard’s list for one hundred all-time villains. In this speech I will tell you how the joker was created, the criminal career of the joker, and trademark characteristics of the joker.
Since ancient Greek times, the stories of heroes seemed to take the world by storm. Tales of these half-human half- gods intrigued many people and endured for centuries. This mythology has created one of the most successful movie genres in the world, making millions of dollars in box offices and sales in merchandise. The popularity of heroes did not go away over time, but rather it increased to a point where they are placed on a pedestal. Their stories and movies not only discuss important attributes people should have, but reflect the type of “savior” needed to fix the societal problems we face. The causes of their popularity are quite simple, people love entertainment and their ability to relate to the character. However, upon closer examination
V’s vendetta against the government is legitimised after the audience discovers that V was tortured and experimented on by the government. When V obliterates the Old Bailey no resulting human causalities are shown in order to minimise the explosion’s negative impacts. After V’s offensives on the Old Bailey and Jordan Tower, the audience is immediately shown the government propaganda response to the attack which the audience knows to be false, distracting the audience from resenting the atrociousness of V’s acts and instead turning their anger towards the government for lying. As previously mentioned, Prothero and Lilliman are made to be villains resulting in the audience having little for compassion for them when they are murdered by V. The one person who was remorseful for her actions, Daisy, is killed painlessly with an injection and has her apology accepted by V, illustrating that V only uses violence on those who do not recognise the fault of their actions resulting in his methods appearing to be fair. In order to advance their agenda by striking fear in the population giving them an excuse to increase control, the government blamed a virus, that they purposefully released and had the only cure, on terrorists. Similarly, the government performed human experiments on civilians whose only crime was not conforming, to eradicate any threats to their dominance. The film intentionally portrays the gravity of the human experiments and biological attack as greater than V’s killing of those who have done serious wrong, and his destroying of empty buildings. Moreover, the gravity of the government’s actions is increased by causing the audience to again negatively associate them with the Nazis, who too performed human experiments and,