Joker


Anybody watch "The King Of Comedy" before going to see "Joker"?

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I just watched The King of Comedy, like few years ago. 😂 Haven’t seen Joker yet. But I did get reminded of The King of Comedy when I saw De Niro in the trailer. Is there a bigger connection between the two movies? Or just that in both De Niro plays comedians?

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In "Joker", De Niro plays a late night comedy tv host, like Jerry Lewis played in "The King Of Comedy".

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So we could look at it as a sequel, De Niro’s character finally made it and has become like his idol Jerry Lewis’ character. And Joker is like De Niro was in previous movie, unsuccessful comedian who wants to be like his idol? 😆

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If you wish to.

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"So we could look at it as a sequel"

no

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Obviously I was joking.

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Yes! Just watched it because I'm seeing Joker next week and I kept hearing a lot of comparisons being made to this film, which I had never seen before. I was aware of it being a Scorsese that I hadn't seen and decided to watch it for some context. Great film! Though I'm not sure I would call it a comedy, but then I'm not sure what else I would call it. A very strange kind of comedy, like an extremely dark cringe comedy, almost like Nighty Night but with less evil.

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Joker is almost a remake of The King of Comedy.

The plotline is basically the same.

Loser guy lives with his mom or something.
Practices forever, obsesses with famous comedian.
Has wild fantasies that the audience is not sure if they are even real or not. Tries to make it with a girl when he's jus an incel.
Tries to make it into the comedian world, and ends up being rejected by the famous comedian.
Plans and takes revenge on famous comedian.
In The King of Comedy this results in him actually becoming famous.
In Joker this results in him forming his criminal persona.

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The script was written for Scorsese to direct. King of Comedy, itself, is a bit of a retake of Taxi Driver. Obviously, there's a lot of Taxi Driver in Joker as well. I think the Joker is one of the best American movies of the last twenty years, but it is impossible to deny it wears its influences on its sleeves.

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It's just sad that the cheap copy (Joker) ended up being way more successful than any of the originals (Taxi Driver/King of Comedy).

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interestingly, I just read in the trivia section "Jerry Lewis suggested that his character be killed by Rupert at the end of the film, but Martin Scorsese rejected his idea." Being at the climax of the film, I wonder if Joker would've still murdered Deniro had Deniro murdered Jerry Lewis or whether Joker would've been forced to do something else for fear of similarity

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when I read the synopsis of Joker I thought it seemed familiar, then realised why. I didn't realise how much of a copycat film it was until I actually saw it - it's possible they put DeNiro in the Jerry Lewis role as an homage to its source material.
Interestingly, another very successful from the same time, La La Land, has a similar story to another of Scorsese's lesser-known earlier movies, New York New York

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