Palpatine's achievements and ambitions are essential to the character, as are those of the Joker's.
And right off the bat I'm forced to disagree with you entirely. I'm not going to parrot Luciens' words back at you because they speak for themselves. Instead I'll remind you that good characters have absolutely nothing to do with their 'achievements.' A character can achieve jack fvcking shit and still succeed as a character with a developed and interesting personality.
I, instead, like to judge characters as characters. The depth and strength of their personality, the themes that coalesce in them and their role in the narrative, the meaning behind their words and actions these things are what make a character great. Not how many spaceships he owns or planets he can blow up.
If all it took for a character to be great was power, ambition and achievements then I could create the greatest villian of all time right now on a notepad. 😬
When I ask myself who is the better villain, I ask myself who is more dangerous, more intelligent, more powerful, the better "villainous" personality, and, to an extent, which is more realistic.
I would definately agree that these are issues to take into consideration, but not that they are exactly that important. As I said, power does not make a villian great.
Give the Joker godlike power and does he instantly become a better villian? No, of course not. The Joker has exactly the right level of power and ability that he should have in the narrative. He is essentially a dark counterpart to Batman. They are both geniuses and somewhat mad, one limited in his persuit of a cause, one utterly unrestrained in the persuit of no cause at all (I'm quoting the review here btw 😄 ). The characters work because they are dark reflections of each other, evenly matching in a fight that barely even takes place on the physical level, but rather on a philosophical one. So I ask again: Would the Joker be a better villian if he could shoot lightning from his fingertips.
In his narrative role as Batman's exact counterpart, absolutely not.
Whether or not Ledger is a better actor than McDiarmid is as irrelevant to me as whether or not TDK is a better film than ROTS because the performance of the actors matters, to me, only insofar as whether or not they do a good job conveying the character's personality. For example, I consider Jack Nicholson to be ten times the actor Ledger was, but Ledger's Joker was better in that he was scarier and more entertaining.
Yeah, acting shouldn't realy come into play, but it really does at the end of the day. Bad acting can make or break a character. Look at that guy you posted complaining about Bale's voice.
IDK, a portrayal is definately important in taking a character seriously. You can tell me how 'dangerous' Palpatine is all day long, but in the end, the guy on the screen just makes me laugh more times than most. >_>
Now with that said, that Palpatine operated on a galactic scale is essential in identifying which villain was more dangerous. The Joker terrorized Gotham City, which is no mean feat; Palpatine tore the galaxy asunder and plagued it for decades.
Hal 9000 just killed a few astronauts.
Keyser Soze killed no-one on screen.
Did Jack Torrance from the Shining kill anyone?
Norman Bates killed like 2 people.
Are they shitty villians?
The Joker, on the other hand, operates with a level of near omniscience afforded to him by the writers that is damn near comical.
Examples?
The guards eventually succumbed to cowardice, though, and were willing to let the button be pushed. The cocky business guy eventually handed it off to the black guy, who dumped it out the window. Why weren't these murderers, criminals, and convicts scrambling to save their skins?
They were willing but couldn't go through with it. They were civilians and couldn't just murder a boatload of people. Then the black guy through the criminals detonator out of the window. The other inmates didn't do anything because the guards had machine guns and when the dude was willing to hand it over the black guy stepped in and chucked that sucker nice and hard. Pretty simple stuff.
That the Joker didn't personally kidnap Rachel is irrelevant; it was at his direction that it happened and so he bears responsibility,
We know that, but does Dent? All he saw was a bunch of corrupt cops try to kill him. The Joker was in prison. He didn't know that the Joker planned to be caught. The corrupt police force and the mob were much more likely to have done it, and thats who he goes after, then after the man who allowed the corruption to exist under his nose, Gordon, and finally Batman, who saved him rather than Rachel.
Plus, y'know.... insane.
Here's another problem: Are you really going to dispute that the lust for power is unrealistic?
Lust for power on the scale that you create a galaxy spanning war and basically act like Doctor Doom on crack is certainly unrealistic. Its also incredibly lazy. Who needs to give a villian actual depth, motivation and character development when you can just say he does everything for 'POWAH'? Gee, thats never been done before. What an original character archetype. 😐
More importantly, am I supposed to buy that Dent was mentally affected by Rachel's death but Anakin wasn't at the thought of Padme's? Why? Explain to me why I should evaluate them differently other than because you happen to like one scenario over the other.
Emphasis mine. Anakin murders children because a hideous monster said he can stop Anakin bad dreams. I'll give Lucas the benefit that he established 'dream dying = bad', but murdering children because of a dream is and always will be pretty fvcking stupid.
Plus Dent was actually insane from Rachel, y'know, actually dying. As opposed to just dreaming it. Anakin wasn't insane or mentally affected at all. He was worried, sure. But crazy? Fvck no.
We can trade one-liners and sarcastic jabs the entire discussion, but why? You don't think I can dumb down the plot of Dent's corruption in an equally disingenuous manner? You underestimate my ability to do so: I've seen Janus in action, remember?
cool bye
The dark side of the Force isn't simply a series of choices, N. Why else would Yoda tell Luke that the dark side forever dominates the destiny of its users? Why is it that dark siders commit atrocities and villainy after succumbing for the most noble of intentions? It's not to be equated with outright evil; it's clearly a metaphysical addiction. That is a consistent theme throughout the entirety of the saga.
In that sense, it is perfectly understandable why Anakin seemed so committed to it. And even then, doubts and uncertainty plagued him even after slaughtering the Separatists on Mustafar, as per Lucas's commentary.
Re-read what I said. I didn't criticise Anakin being crazy, I criticised that you were using that to excuse his idiotic and nonsensical actions while laying into Dents own incredibly insane actions. You can't have it both ways Gideon.
Equally, I find the Joker's "agent of chaos" motivation cheesy.
Except that was jsut a bunch of BS he was spouting to convert Dent. He isn't a agent of chaos. Look at all these detailed and intricate plans he comes up with.
The Jokers primary motivation is unclear, but imo, he's trying to prove that people are really no different than he is. That they'll turn on each other the moment the chips are down. The bankheist, where all the crooks turned on each other, the 'tryouts', where the last man standing gets to live, turning the city against batman, the man who selflessly cleaned up their streets at his own personal risk, the boat with the detonators and finally Harvey Dent. He's always showing that people are ******* who will turn and bite the hand that feeds them the first chance they get. That they will always turn on each other. That they're all just like him.
He's not a monster, he's just ahead of the current. 😉
Meanwhile, lust for power has corrupted real men and women throughout history. It's plausible and realistic.
And unoriginal and boring and lame as ****.