Hearing Mark Hamill reading the Joker lines from the Killing Joke made me realize that this interpretation of the Joker really is nothing like the Joker Hamill played on BTAS. The nihilistic philosophy of Moore's Joker and the "one bad day" stuff is not at all present in the DCAU, not even in its more adult outings. At no point is there ever an indication that the DCAU Joker is doing what he does out of despair or nihilism, but rather because he's simply a sadist with a flair for showmanship. Indeed, Mask of the Phantasm all but spells out that the DCAU Joker was a psychopath even before he became the Joker. In that sense, I feel like the desire to see a Killing Joke adaptation tailored to Hamill's take on the Joker was almost misguided from the start.
What I hate about the one bad day thing are all the edgelords who say Joker was right when he said it when Gordon not going mad even after all he did to him proves him wrong. Batman also basically says to Joker "Normal people don't become like you. There was something wrong with you to begin with."
I would chalk up the voice as more of poor direction than Hammil not being suited. Prior to the animated movie, there was a reading of the "one bad day" monologue by someone in Mark's voice(really good impression, btw) and it's how one would imagine the comic. The movie, on the other hand, gave it a poor delivery and mixed it in a fight scene.
Well, consider that these two Dockers come from different continuities that's what this is. And the comic Joker is a Nihilist and in the dcau of Batman the animated series, he's a monster with showmanship.
There's a fan-made recut of the film that removes everything but the events of the actual comic; it was made by someone called Blueyoda and it's called Batman: The Killing Joke - The Novel Cut, and it's absolutely worth a watch imo
@@srstriker6420 It's not just pointless, it's disgusting. Batman is old enough to be her father. He's canonically known her since she was a child, and has acted as a father figure to her.
@@WobblesandBean In the Bruce Timm universe pretty sure Batman and Barbara don't meet until she's already a college student and is like 22 years old. Thanks to Watchtower database we know Bruce Wayne is 28-30 years old during the events of BTAS. So no, an 8ish year age gap is not "old enough to be her father" lmao. Commissioner Gordon is like, twice Bruce's age at least, Gordon is in his 60's.
Why they didn't adapt Batgirl Special #1 for the first half and instead made up a cringey story about Babs and that rando gangster and brucebabs is beyond me
I always thought it would have been better if they had merged Killing Joke with Batman Ego, which is all about Batman's internal debate on if he should kill the Joker.
Now that would make it better as I guess we could see the other villains cameos on that why they’re different from the Joker as he kills people for fun while others just do it for money or revenge.
Executives and producers in Hollywood cannot understand that people would totally be okay with a 45 minute movie that is an accurate adaptation of a comic rather than extending it with a bunch of nonsense so it reaches the hour and a half mark
@Elfenlied8675309 They're Warner Bros. They can pretty much do whatever the hell they want. It can be released to streaming, on the Internet, or they could work a deal with select theaters. Also, there is no agreed-upon minimum runtime for a feature-length film, but the most common standard suggested is 40 minutes. Long feature runtimes actually eat into cinema profits because every minute spent showing a film is a minute they could be starting a new showing and cramming a new set of ticket sales into their screening schedule. Theaters would welcome a 30 or 40 minute feature they can slip into smaller gaps in their screen schedule.
A lot of people won't be willing to pay the same amount of money for a 45 minute film as for a full-length one. Extending the film wouldn't cost the studio that much more because most of the budget probably went to the star cast of voice actors, but drecreasing the price to justify the shorter runtime wouod heavily cut into profits and could cause the film to flop (it barely made a profit as-is). This is the main reason
I think it would have been nice if it was a 30 minute short, but they used all of their budget into really making the artstyle as detailed as the original novel.
No they didn’t, this movie has terrible art design and was made for cheap in general. There’s a video by hbomberguy about this that I think you should watch, this movie has like sapped all the more subtle but important imagery from the movie aside from the more iconic panels
Fun fact: a Batgirl comic book from about 7? years ago retconned the entire Killing Joke storyline to be a false memory in Barbara's head that never happened. They retconned it into a dream in Batgirl #41.
If I had a nickel for every plotline that got retconned into just being batgirl's dream, id have two nickels. Which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice
When I was a child and read TKJ by first time, I wished with passion to see that amazing graphic novel adapted as an animated movie. After 2016, I stopped wishing in general 😅
With all due respect, Luke, Bruce Timm only included that awful rooftop scene because he has this weird obsession with shipping Bruce and Barbara together. I doubt he was thinking of the implications when he wrote it and got his crew to animate it. It was to satisfy his own shipping obsession and nothing more. I am sorry, but I strongly disagree with your take and that fans should be "grateful" You make it sound like the fans are ungrateful that the film was made. I read the story, and I enjoyed it (personally, I like the original version with the striking colouring), and I will admit that the adaptation is decent, but it is flawed. The animation looks stiff sometimes, and the voice acting was not as strong as I thought it would be. I am not saying it was bad. Bruce and Mark are great, but something felt off about their performances in the film. They have some good moments, but compared to their great performances from Return of The Joker, this film falls a little bit. I am grateful that DC decided to make an adaptation, but it could have been so much better. The short with Barbara could have been better if the villain was Killer Croc, and during a confrontation, he nearly kills her. This traumatise Barbara and Bruce, and Bruce decides to take her off the case for her safety. They fight, but Bruce defeats her, and they walk away from each h other on bitter terms. No sex scene. Later, Barbara decides to face her fears and confront Croc. She locates him just as he is about to kill Batman. She stops him, and together, Barbara and Bruce take him down. Barbara reconciles with Bruce but decides to take a break from being Batgirl at least until she feels ready. The themes of vulnerability and fear are still there but not held down by objectification or SA. This is not about being ungrateful it is about fans being disgusted at Barbara being portrayed as a prop for Bruce's story with The Joker and how some of the nuance from the comic was lost. However, with all that said, do I think this film is the worst Batman film? Not really. It is not perfect, but at least the film tried to tell a serious story. In my opinion, the worst Batman film is Batman and Harley Quinn. That film was a mockery to the character of Quinn.
I really disliked this version of the comic - There are four things Batman should never do - 1. Call Robin names and to eat rats, 2. Kill people, 3. His best friend's daughter; And 4 his foster kid's girlfriend/ex-girlfriend. And he does 3/4 in this movie. (Thank goodness Mr. Miller wasn't involved in this.) I'd take anti-shark spray over this. That aside the late Mr. Conroy and Mr. Hamill just plain are used to doing different versions of these characters.
Bruce Timm's version of Batman and Barbara are both adults when they meet. If we're going off general DCAU stuff, Bruce Timm's version of Barbara broke up with Robin when Robin got mad and quit working with Batman. Batman Beyond shows multiple times that Barbara and Bruce dated for potentially years. This has all been the typical Bruce Timm story stuff since the 90's.
Nah, it’s just bad direction. Both Hamil and Conroy can do circles around both interpretations of these characters. You can’t tell me Arkham Batman and DCAU are very similar aside from Batman being voiced by conroy. It’s bad direction, the fact that this movie had a budget of like 30 dollars total, and the bad writing that even made its way into the latter half of the movie where it’s supposed to be a more direct adaptation. This movie shouldn’t drag on their legacy, it’s just a shitty movie that even they couldn’t really make worth it
My understanding of the controversy wasn't around Babs having sex with Batman so much as it added a problematic layer to the later incident. They can say it aimed to give her agency to counter prior accusations of fridging but by introducing a romance it feels like it only extends it. Show Babs be successful in a side story instead. Sure she can make a mistake in her crime-fighting but why make it what it was here? The comic incident was delicate enough as it was. I should note I don't think it's terrible but it is wholly unnecessary. If The Long Halloween can be adapted into two great animated films without changing much then I'm sure they could've extended this into feature length. As is, it's fine but feels rushed & kinda cheap. But that's my opinion.
Actually, this WASN’T the first time that Joker had an origin…in fact; the origin in TKJ is basically the same one that Bill Finger gave him back in Detective Comics #168 from 1951.
In truth, I don't rank the graphic novel that highly. It tries to elicit pity for Joker whilst at the same time having no concept of how mental illness works, and instead opting to have Joker monologue about how 'crazy' he is. There's a reason why I feel pity for characters like Pyg and Hatter, but see Joker as nothing but a grifter. Because he's clearly sane, just evil.
Thiiiiiiiiis. Honestly, if not for the ambiguous ending and that one iconic panel of The Joker after his transformation, I don't think the comic would be as beloved as it is. I hate it because they turned Barbara into a woman in a fridge.
Hence Why I Love Miller's Ideas Of Joker, As This Demon Given Human Form, I'm Fine With Joker Having A Tragic Backstory, But I Don't Think He Deserves Pity, Or Sympathy In His Current State, He's Not Some Poor Mental Unwell Man, He's A Vile Creature Wearing The Guise Of A Clown.
Yeah, 9/10 times the Joker 100% knows what he's doing and revels in it. In fact, I'd argue that's the number one rule of being a comedian, a comedian has to know what he/she is doing as well as make 100% sure that the audience knows it too because if that's not the case, people aren't laughing at a skilled comedian, they're laughing at a poor loser embarrassing themselves. In fact, laughing at him like he's a poor loser embarrassing himself was what defeated him in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Sure, Joker's obsession with Batman is a little crazy and I do think comparing this obsession with Batman's own that drives him to be Batman is fair to an extent, but neither one of these characters is actually delusional about what they're doing and why. Joker being disproportionately obsessed with Batman because of his own damn ego is not the same thing as Pyg believing he's making people perfect by horribly disfiguring them and erasing their individuality.
That’s the point, joker is wrong at the end of the story. He’s not right about it taking “one bad day”, he’s just evil and sees himself as more. Gordon didn’t break but joker did because he was never a good person to begin with. You could almost empathize with him, but he only ever used his tragic backstories as an excuse, not a motive
I never bought the idea of the Joker as a tragic victim. Phantasm's take on his early persona felt much truer to me - I don't think anyone could become the Joker if he wasn't a sociopath to begin with.
I think the "backstory" is him lying to himself (or the viewer if we want to be meta) about it. The incident where he falls in the vat of chemicals is true but everything else is a lie
I don't know if any of you listen to the commentary on The Killing Joke Dvd/Bluray, but it was hilarious having Kevin Conroy admit he was jealous Joker got a Song and Dance number and not him! Almost makes you think about Bruce, in Batman Beyond ,when he was grumpy watching that Batman play with Terry! Almost as is if he were thinking "It should have been me!"😂
I came to see this movie to see the comic adaptation come to life. No one came here for a beginning side story of some gang leader with a ridiculous name or batgirl getting horny for Batman’s batarang. 🙄
I mean, they could've done literally anything else than Batman x Batgirl, like a lot else. They could've used all that extra time to really focus in and fill over a lot of the blanks and spotty narrative spots that the comic book otherwise did or could not fill in. Like I don't know, properly introducing each of the characters and giving us a countdown from the good part of their life before Joker comes in and does his chaotic killing joke shtick. Then, slowly unravel his "One Bad Day Shtick" and have Jim Gordon's revelation not only be a one time short and effective small argument and instead expand it into a grand cacophony of everyone being able to move on from Joker's crimes and prove his "One Bad Day" so wrong it should send the Joker almost to his knees. This would make the original ending hit harder and would streamline everything closer around the Joker's and Batman's relationship while expanding it. If Bruce Timm wanted to make a Batgirl and Batman story, then why not just write another one of his comics or ask for funds to make his own film?
The Killing Joke is, among other things, about loci of control. For the sociopathic Joker, it's entirely external. His wife motivated him to continue pursuing his dream to be a famous comic as well as participate in a heist in order to improve their standard of living. Her death broke his will to do anything. His accident in the chemical plant drove him crazy and the Batman's continued existence drives him to pursue a life of wanton rebellion against all social norms. The Joker's actions in the comic are him attempting to prove that his enemies are fundamentally no different than he is; that under the right set of circumstances, they too will be pushed over the edge just as he was. Yet in every single instance, the opposite happened. Gordon retained his sanity and his belief in the justice system that he personified. Batman resisted the urge to kill the Joker and adhered to his moral code. Finally, in the film, Batgirl overcame her handicap, adapted to her new set of circumstances and found new ways to thrive. It not only speaks to the resilience of these characters but also to the ultimate vapidity and banality of the Joker's evil, regardless of how unique he thinks he is compared to other "agents of chaos" who spread pain and misery to innocent people. This is why, as I get older, I find him increasingly boring and predictable whereas characters like the Cavalier who go out of their way to eschew gratuitous cruelty despite their capacity for ruthlessness are far more intriguing.
I don't think Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett and the other writers meant to imply SA. I think it's plainly stating that the Joker has received his gratification elsewhere. I think that elsewhere is the entire plan to drive the Bat insane. Or on the similar foot, he's totally focused on his goal and had no need for the hanky or the panky.
Knowing Brian Azzarello's work I can't imagine that line had any other meaning, but it's good to see that there's someone else out there that sees things the same way as Bruce.
When I first saw the movie, my thought was Joker's never really been shown to have any sexual interest, even with Harley she was merely a pawn to serve his bidding. The motive of the violation makes him all the more sadistic that he himself gets nothing out of it but the misery it will bring Gordon. It feels more creepy and weird than terrifying I guess, having the SA implication the film suggests.
@@SerumLake The first time I heard "In a state of undress," I cried, but people assured me it wasn't how it looked. That's of course gross, which is why I think the Joker would make it look that way. If this writer has a history of edginess I'd go with your instinct on that.
While it is a treat to get to hear some of these iconic lines from what many consider to be the definitive voices for those characters with Mark Hamill as Joker, Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon and Kevin Conroy as Batman, but personally I still wouldn't say there's anything to defend about this film. I think aside from the obvious issues that everyone has already talked about, a big issue for me has always been that the animation quality doesn't really seem up to par and often seems too stiff. It seems like they tried to combine Bruce Timm's art style with Brian Boland's but the end result looked inferior to either one. Also, despite Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy being the best Batman and Joker ever, unfortunately their performances in the film didn't feel like they lived up to the hype. It sounded like at that point they had gotten a little too old to voice the characters. And regarding everything about the first half, what can I say that people haven't said already, it's pretty terrible. I'm also not a fan of the post-credit scene that shows Barbara as Oracle because despite us knowing that is the outcome for her, it takes away from the ending and the emotion it's supposed to leave you with. If they were going to adapt the Killing Joke, honestly they should have made it a short film.
Saying that scene wasn't meant to imply Barbara's SA feels like PR damage control. I don't know how anyone could see the photos taken of Barbara, hear what the sex workers said about the Joker not coming to see them, and not think that's what happened. Neither the addition of subtext nor implications in fiction is remotely new. I don't know how to say the following without sounding insulting, but It's not intended to be-it feels like the only people who could walk away from the movie thinking something else happened in that apartment are used to having literally every plot point spelled out for them in what they watch. As far as people liking their Batman to be perfect, I always found that amusing. What kind of completely sane, well-adjusted person dresses up in a costume to hunt down bad guys in the first place? Maybe in the early years of the comics he was the pinnacle of morality and heroism-I wouldn't know, as I've not read them-but it doesn't seem like any version of Batman in the last 40+ years has shied away from him being a flawed, but well-intentioned, person.
Probably because Alan Moore the writer of the comic when asked if Joker assaulted Barbara explained that in his opinion the Joker can't even experience attraction or arousal towards anybody. He never has sex, with anyone. The Joker is a completely sexless freak and was written that way to seem more "weird" or "abnormal." The opposite approach to most Joker comics that make Joker obsessed with Batman to the point of basically being gay and only loving Batman.
For me, a "perfect" Batman should be one who almost always never gets hit by the numerous foes all around; the Batman: Arkham games are a fine way to express that, until the bloody cutscenes happen.
the photos COULD if the idea was to screw with Gordon and make him think Joker did something, but everyone and their uncle seems to prefer blatantly confirming or denying what Joker possibly could have done, allegedly.
@GribbleGob The issue with the idea that Joker "faked" the assault just to mess with Gordon is that there's no reason for him (Joker specifically) to do it. A less evil person who only wanted to hurt the guy he had a beef with but didn't want to harm the daughter might do it, but Joker is pure evil. Why would he fake an assault to hurt the father when he can do the assult for real and hurt both? As for the theory that Joker is asexual and therefore wouldn't do it, that doesn't make sense either. In real life most cases of prison sexual abuse is done by heterosexual men on other men, they don't do it for sexual pleasure but for other purposes like as a power move or just for sadism. Joker might be unable to feel sexual attraction but even then he would know that sexuality can be used to hurt people, and he definitely enjoys hurting people.
@@exantiuse497 I mean.. the Joker's whole bit is unhinged lunacy, he would probably find it really funny to make something think SA happened, but I see your point.
This story, film or comic, is a damn hard one to navigate because of just how deeply it dives into it's subject matter and how hard it goes in an effort to make it's point. I don't know that I really want to try and argue opinion against opinion on this one, because the subjective nature of opinion and it's connection to personal experience means reactions to something like this are going to just be really wild and polarizing. But I can examine adaptation decisions, I think. Adaptation is a most thankless kind of writing job, because an adaptation of any work is not the original work, but someone's interpretation and just by nature of interpretation, no two people are going to see the same text the same way. It's therefore an extremely difficult job to adapt anything from one medium to another. Even original authors can have difficulty with that, because not only because different media have different ways of engaging the audience, but also because people change over time and even the original author will interpret his own work differently over time. Because of all this, people are going to disagree with adaptation decisions you make no matter what you do. To give an example, Christopher Tolkien really hated the LotR movies. He felt they were mindless action movies that completely missed the core of his father's work. And while I don't think it's fair to hate them, I can definitely see his argument that they missed the core. I don't fully agree with him on that, but there are definitely some aspects of the books that the movies failed to capture, or outright discarded. I can also understand why he hated them, because those works were something very special to him - a literal gift from his father to him when he was a child. It held a lot of emotional weight to him that it wouldn't for other people, at least not in the same way. So, for the films to gloss over the parts that were most meaningful to him would have absolutely felt like a betrayal. Going back to this movie, I feel kind of the same way here, but I think I more side with people who say the adaptation fails more than it succeeds. For starters, the extra material with Barbara, whatever else it has going for it, simply does not feel like it is meant to be part of the story, because, as you say, it isn't. You say that it works better if you treat it as supplemental material, and that may be true, but the way it's presented doesn't feel supplemental. The way that it is included as a part of the film basically signals to the audience that this is part of the story, so the audience reacts to it that way, which makes the very significant shift from new material to the source material feel really clunky and bothersome. It forces the audience to switch gears too hard. If it had been included separately, as a bonus story created by the authors, I think audience reception to it would have been less harsh, because that would have changed the way they engaged with it. It would have been easier for the audience to engage it as intended. While this kind of adaptation error is not the worst you can make, when you're dealing with source material *this* heavy and *this* well regarded and by nature *this* polarizing, it's the kind of mistake that is really going to throw off a lot of people. There are other issues I have with the adaptation of the actual source material, as well. The animated version has way less attention to fine detail. Stuff like the mug that says "you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps," may seem like an incidental detail, but it is actually important because it reinforces the theme of the story. It takes a flippant joke - that going insane makes things easier - and makes you question that. Did going insane actually make things easier for Joker? I really think not. It's also way less thoughtful about the framing of shots than the comic is. Part of this comes from the fact that a comic only having still frames means you can focus on very specific shots that have much more effective control over the framing, but even taking that into account, some of the shots are much less thoughtful than the comic, treated less as opportunities to convey meaning and more just an attempt to get from point A to point B in the story. Then you have the difference the "Why aren't you laughing" line. In the comic, the Joker seems desperate, almost afraid. You can imagine him trembling as he delivers that line, because his world view is being challenged by events he can't ignore. Gordon didn't just say Joker's reasoning is wrong, he proved it by not going insane despite all that Joker did. Joker is falling into despair in that moment because he's realizing that he didn't have to go insane to cope with what happened, he chose to (in a way, this is very complicated, but speaking from experience, I feel there's good reason to think that's how Joker might, in that moment, be reading events). And then the final speech he gives is less about him justifying it and more realizing that he doesn't have the strength of will to even try to change himself, because he does not want to confront what he really is. Not directly. The movie's read is more angry. He's more offended by the fact that Gordon and Batman don't go insane. While this is also a way that someone might believably react to it, it does change how the story transitions into the end of Joker's mania at the climax feels. To some degree, I feel it lessens the impact of the moment. It's not enough to say it ruins the adaptation, but because people watching it are already upset because the supplemental material put them off, little things like that stand out more because they've already been put in a frame of mind to not enjoy what they're watching. Overall, a lot of the negative reaction to this film seems to me to be a collection of decisions piling up against audience expectations and whether or not you hate it comes down to whether or not its original adaptation mistake bothers you. That's subjective experience, but I still call it an adaptation error because it was a problem that could easily have been avoided by separating the extra material into an actual separate feature. That's where I say adaptation is such a thankless job. It can be really hard to tell what the right move is in these cases and even people with a very finely honed sense of storytelling, who are very skilled at writing, can still make these mistakes that will turn off a significant part of the intended audience. It's a very high-risk/high-reward situation. Which is why I find it so funny that so many Hollywood executives think that adaptations are a safe bet. They're really the unsafest bet there is. If it pays off, it pays off well, but if it doesn't, you crash and burn. There is rarely middle ground. I was actually surprised to hear you come out and say you like the adaptation, considering how that is so against the general opinion, but I think it was good to hear that, because, provided you aren't dismissive of it, it's an opportunity to look at the story from a different perspective. I've got other things to say about this story, but I think that should probably be a different comment, since it's more about the actually story itself rather than the adaptation. Also, this comment has already gone on very long. Also also, I've been sitting down at my computer so long, I think I should stand up and get some exercise.
Every time I watch the BrucexBarbara scene, I imagine Rorschach and Nite Owl watching them through a hidden camera, with Walter saying: "Keep touching her, buddy. Every touch of your fingers on her skin will be another broken bone you will have before I put you in a cell" *Eats a sugar cube*
"And that lamented sex scene between Batgirl and Batman was designed to serve a similar role. It humanizes both Batman and Batgirl, showing them to be-" in a Bruce Timm project.
Why is showing and humanising a woman in control have to about sex and has that even controlling both of them wanted to do it? Barb didn’t convince or order Batman to do it. That is the dumbest logic I ever heard and I bet since he ships Batman and batgirl he just wanted an excuse to do it.
I had the bad luck to watch this film before knowing about thevoriginal intro. Literaly my reaction with the whole Paris France plot was "Ok, where's the hidden camera?"
Keep in mind, Bruce Timm always shipped Batman and Batgirl since Batman: TAS. The reason Dick Grayson quit as Robin is because he discovered his ex-girlfriend: Barbara cheated on him for Batman (metaphorically) ! In Batman Beyond, the relationship between Bruce and Babs feels like that of a bitter divorced couple, which explains why the latter acted more like Ellen Yindel than herself.
One of my favorite things about TKJ for me is how Batman genuinely tries to reach out to and help the Joker. It's a side of Batman I wish we got to see more of. As for the film: Ignoring the Barbara DLC, the film is pretty neat, as is Mark Hamill getting to do this story (which he said he'd TOTALLY come back for), but a lot of it feels rushed and and poorly done. For example, when the doctor examines Barbara, instead of the scene taking its time for him to properly examine her paralysis (like in the graphic novel), he just pokes her feet in under a few seconds and is like 'she'll never walk again.' The final bout between Joker and Batman doesn't feel as right as the one in the graphic novel. Instead of following Joker through the funhouse as he goes all "One Bad Day," it's turned into combat dialogue, spouted while smacking Batman with phony kitchenware. And having Joker's laugh stop while Bats keeps going is another addition I could do without. SRSLY, this whole theory of 'did Batman really kill Joker?' really needs to stop. PS: I do enjoy the addition of Barbara getting set up as Oracle in the credits. That's the ONLY extra Barbara scene I'd take.
HOT TAKE! I’m tired of the Killing Joke/Death in the Family references in most Batman media. It’s to the point where it’s becoming a trope and suspense any form of creativity.
"The grave yards he's filled, the friends he's crippled". Can't help but agreeing with Jason. Bat should have killed the joker right after what he did to Barbara.
You're agreeing with Jason Todd? The manchild psycho with brain damage who thinks to stop murderers you have to be a murderer? You're arguing the "good guy with a gun" fallacy? lmao
Nah. Batman shouldn't kill anyone for anynreason. He should apprehend Joker and the justice system should execute him. I know there's an excuse that Joker won't be executed or imprisoned because he's insane but that's BS, he's not legally insane and would get the chair IRL
The Killing Joke comic was actually one of my first Batman stories when someone lent me a collection of Alan Moore’s works for DC. I pretty much always just skip the opening on rewatch of the movie but my main grip, which I know is nitpicking, is how they felt the need to reword a lot of the dialogue. The main point of all the monologues are still there but a big reason I bought and watched this movie was because I wanted to hear Kevin and Mark deliver these iconic lines. They even felt the need to mess with the one bad day monologue and reword a bunch of it
While I do agree you could just FF past all of the extra story filler, I think the notion of doing that proves that it shouldn’t be there in the first place. Seems to me they wanted it at 77 minutes so they’d have an excuse to put it in theaters and make the 25 dollar Blu-Ray price more justified. But that’s just another example of putting profit over story, which is ultimately why I really don’t care for this adaptation. HBomberguy also has a video about this movie that I like, because he outlines how much of the brilliance is taken out of not just the story itself but also the comic artwork and all of the extra narrative that adds. IMO, outside of admittedly great performances from Hamill and Conroy as usual, they really did just content-ify the Killing Joke. All that being said, great video as usual!:)
Barbara Gordon's crippling in The Killing Joke is truly one of the most infamous fridging moments in comics history. Although it is understandable that many fans hate that a character as iconic as Batgirl was left in a wheelchair in a story in which she is not even the protagonist, there are two important things to keep in mind. 1. By the time The Killing Joke was made, Barbara was no longer an important character. After the first reboot brought on by 1985's Crisis, DC decided to make Batman a more reclusive figure, leaving Alfred, Jason, and sometimes Dick as the only members of the Bat-Family. Because of this, many former Gotham heroes (such as Batwoman, Betty Kane, and Ace) were erased from the canon, and Batgirl was retired via a farewell comic, so now she was just a civilian who made sporadic and unimportant appearances. Therefore, it is understandable that DC no longer gave the character any value other than serving as motivation for the other protagonists. Anyway, I bet if Alan Moore had written The Killing Joke in the late '70s or early '80s, there's no way they would have let him cripple Barbara. 2. Something that many people forget when criticizing The Killing Joke is the fact that Moore did not plan for said story to be canon at the time of writing it, since he basically considered it an imaginary story like "Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" . He didn't expect that his graphic novel would fascinate publishers so much that they would introduce it into the main continuity. In fact, one of the reasons Moore ended up regretting his participation in The Killing Joke was how he accidentally left Barbara permanently paralyzed. That said, I'm not claiming that what they did to Barbara in that comic was a good artistic decision. I'm just saying that there are more complex explanations for cases like this than simply the "pure misogyny" argument many people use
It is not that complicated. The writers did not bloody care about her. But if you think there was not at least a little misogyny involved maybe you should get off your fucking high horse and have a close look@
Yeah, a lot of Alan Moore's comics were simply what if's or simply stories that were meant to see, the negative side of heroes....the man hates, his contributions to the industry, because despite his nihilistic views, he vastly perfer heroes that inspire rather than thr gritty ones....this is probably why, the only adaptation of his work, he ever approved off was the DCAU's version "for the man who has everything", that adaptation cut off, all the cynism and focused on the main factors that made the story great....in his eyes, the removal of the cynism improved his story, hence he allowed it to have it's name in the credits.
Wish people liked the idea of Elseworlds stuff more. Not all long-running tales based on differing works and their authors are great in my perspective, and the idea of Multiverse Theory is truly vast infinite even without the flabbergasted Crises on Infinite Milky Ways. Still, we sorely need less Oracles, or at least less Barbara Gordons becoming unfortunate PWDs (occasional bad**s moments notwithstanding).
One thing that always stuck out to me about the Killing Joke comic was that, if you looked at Joker's face much of the time, yes he had his massive trademark grin, but everything above the smile was like a completely different expression. His face, and most especially his eyes, gave the look of a man in terrible pain, screaming "Somebody Help Me" or "I'm In Terrible Pain". The fact that this was overlooked in the movie shows that the people in charge didn't really understand the assignment.
Alan Moore the guy who wrote the book doesn't even understand the story. Him and the artist have argued back and forth over things for decades. Moore saying one thing, Brian Bolland saying another. That's not even mentioning that Moore now disavows this book and wishes it never existed lol.
I agree with you, Luke. The film works MUCH better if you start watching the BluRay at Chapter 4 and eliminate the entire "Batgirl fucks Batman" prologue. It cuts out of the movie so easily that it confirms it never belonged in the story in the first place. What's left is a pretty faithful adaptation of the original Alan Moore/Brian Bolland graphic novel with terrific performances by Kevin Conroy (R.I.P.) and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker. And there's a nice mid-credits scene that teases Barbara Gordon's future as Oracle, confirming that she won't let this tragedy stop her from doing good. Perfect.
Hi again! I haven't watched yet but thanks so much for getting rid of the yellow bar at the bottom of the thumbnail. I was able to clearly see at a glance that I hadn't watched this vid and that makes all the difference ♥
I like to think that Kevin Conroy's reaction when filming the scene of Bruce and Barbara making babies was: "YOU'RE DEAD TO ME, BRUCE. And I'm not referring to the fictional character..."
I saw a panel where Kevin said he didn't get the fuss about the scene and thought it was quite powerful. Phil Lamarr was on the same panel and he had completely the opposite view. It was quite interesting to watch!
For part of a drama festival or something I once performed Joker's famous monologue from the end of The Killing Joke. Someone filmed it and it's on TH-cam somewhere.
This is maybe the most fair take on the movie I've seen. Was it great? No. Was it good? Well, arguably no. Was it ever going to be? No. Should it have been made at all? Probably not. For all the reasons you pointed out, a filmed version of The Killing Joke was never going to work. But it does give us, I think, the definitive performances from Kevin Conroy, Tara Strong and especially Mark Hamill, who give their all to a script that maybe didn't earn it. The three of them take what would have been a totally forgettable film if left to one-off VAs and turned it into something that no matter what you think of it, we will all remember.
I love the movie, especially Mark Hamils " I Go Looney!" Number!❤😂 This movie is going to get as good as it can get as far as adaptations go but- I know people constantly complain about Bruce and Barberra. Listen people, they're both consenting adults. I 've heard the argument of " Its his best friends daughter" but both have been in many adventures together and developed feelings/ care for one another. Yes, I'm sure it's continuing Bruce Timms shipping but this doesn't bother me. The narrative wanted us( the audience) to care about Barbara before her fated shooting. In fact, Barberra's run in with that mobster was from an earlier tie- in comic before The Killing Joke. I know many of you would complain if the film were a 100% like the original story and had omitted the whole " Barberra Arc", you'd complain how sudden her shooting would be and say 'I wish we got to know more about her before hand.' In short the film would've been 45 minutes and still people would complain .😂
I had the privilege of watching this in theaters, and getting to see the pre-movie interviews with Kevin and Mark as they talked about their BTAS roles. Let me tell you, it was an unforgettable experience. Getting to see this comic adapted on the big screen was, Amazing. The introduction doesn't really bother me, as I think it goes a long way towards showing Barbara as an everyday person capable of handling herself despite the many odds stacked against her. As for.... That scene. I did think it was very odd and out of character, But I think it's easy to justify: I think that she wants Some form of recognition, and it boils over into that scene. To be honest, after you watch the first half, the second half feels like a BTK home invasion, making it more chilling in my opinion.
I did a comparison review between the comic and movie last year, but TH-cam doesn't seem to want to more people to see it, or so the low views tell me. As I commented onto the community post, the movie could have avoided the thing with Batman and Batgirl if Jason Todd's Robin was included to the prologue story as a 3rd wheel to keep THAT thing from ever happening. But for some stupid reason they decided to change the order between the Killing Joke and A Death In The Family by making the former have happened AFTER the latter one. WHICH WOULDN'T MAKE SENSE because why would Batman come have that talk with the murderer of his son after he actively tried to get back at him during the climax at UN incident. Also, the Joker in the Killing Joke is easier to see as a Death Seeker who wants to die, but is unable to do it himself. That is why he does what he does in giving his victims and their loved ones, like Batman, Harley Quinn, Gordon, Barbara or Jason Todd, a reason to kill him. Batman especially because the flashbacks of the Killing Joke make him responsible for the Joker's current form of existense and the Joker would so want Batman to take responsibility for his actions. But the fact that he doesn't and most other people never do either, so ends up being the same OVERDONE punchline to the joke of a life he exists in.
Great video, but I don't think that most people dislike the opening 30 minutes because they're "purposeless", most fans can tell what they were trying to do there, people dislike that addition to the story because the execution is absolutely atrocious and it's made even worse by Brian Azzarello's usual use of cheap shock value, they could've easily focused on showing Barbara's agency without commiting character assasination on that rooftop lmao
@@Elfenlied8675309 Dude, where did I say that in my comment? I literally started by saying that everyone knows the opening sequence was added to the movie because they wanted to give Barbara more agency because in the original TKJ she had none, but the new story Azzarello wrote to focus on her agency is simply bad and it makes Barbara even more defined by the men in her life
"And that lamented sex scene between Batgirl and Batman was designed to serve a similar role. It humanised both Batman and Batgirl, showing them to be flawed people." They already are flawed people, Serum. Especially Batman. He's a man who is obssessed with stopping crime forever despite the fact he knows he can't do that because of a repressed childhood trauma that he decided to overcome by putting on a bat costume and beating up criminals with his bare hands each and every night so no other kid has to suffer what we went through when he was a child. Banging your best friend/ally's young daughter despite you're mentally stable enough to know it is morally wrong is not a character flaw. It's character assasination.
The first half was a hard sell that *could have* worked only if it were executed just right, and they executed it possibly the worst they could have. The second half is passible, but again the limited animation and some questionable voice direction even from the greats lead it to be ultimately disappointing. Also, no disrespect to the great talent of Tara Strong, but Nelissa Gilbert is MY Batgirl. Also also I cannot fathom how anyone could read Killing Joke and possibly entertain the notion for even a fraction of a second that Batman could somehow have killed Joker at the end. I just...HOW?!?! It literally makes no sense that anyone could read that AT ALL from what was going on.
Because Brian Bolland the artist for the comic book says Batman murders the Joker at the end, and that's why the lights reflecting on the street burn out in the final panel. Alan Moore has said obviously that was never the intention while writing it, but Bolland specifically wanted Batman to kill Joker at the end. Moore described the ending as "Two insane psychopaths sharing there only brief moment of lucidity together and laughing at how ridiculous the circumstances of their lives are."
I'll be honest, I never really liked the Killing Joke to begin with. It, along with comics like Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, ushered in the "grim and gritty" era of superhero stories. They had to be darker, more serious, more violent and so on, and it's a trend the medium is still struggling to get out of 😟
It's gross. She's the daughter of Bruce's friend and the ex of his (adopted) son. I know there's no blood relationship but I feel like that crosses too many boundaries.
When this first came out I didn't even watch the new opening. I just got confused, skipped ahead, and thoroughly enjoyed the film. I didn't know what people were upset about until two weeks later.
Things i didn't like about the adaptation proper (ignoring the first half and some are nitpicks): 1. Hamill is a bad choice for this Joker. DCAU and Arkham Joker aren't interested in psychologically proving one bad day yadda they're psychos who find murder and mayhem funny. Hamill's joker voice is cartoonish and smarmy which is good for those versions but not for TKJ Joker. 2. The animation is pretty western superhero generic. Plan Making Mammals showed a comic book stylized animation of the trailer and it's so much better. 3. It's a blink and you'll miss moment but Batman shows a screne of Jason Todd's corpse. It's a reference to Batman #428, but it does cement that unlike the comic, the film takes place after Death in the Family. It bugs me that Batman still treats Joker with kid gloves at the end and doesn't meantion Jason's death. They shouldn't have had this reference if they weren't going to do anything with it. 4. Some good shots of the comic are just not done well in the movie, also with Batman havin this big epic fight witht he freeks that makes him telling the joker we need to talk not impactful, Batman (accidentally?) killing the midgets, and getting rid of the mirror fight and replacing it with and unpside down house. Hbomberguy went into detail of even small things like how Two-face's cameo is worse.
My main problem with the movie is they didn't try to at least emulate the art style from the comic. The Killing Joke Comic is got to be the most cunning art piece that has been put into a comic book. The sheer inner details and depth of the comic is down right beautiful. The movie really missed the mark in terms of art. The visuals of the movie are so boring and bleak while also removing the hidden details in the comic. This is the biggest sin of the movie for me.
Because the comic's coloring was all redone like a decade ago and was made to look more grey and muted. Brian Bolland wanted the bright colors removed. Something about the original comics coloring being completely wrong because it was handed off to somebody else or something like that.
The Killing Joke is one of my all time favourite Batman stories and one of the first graphic novels i ever got for myself, it was one of those story arcs i always wanted to see adapted as an animated movie and i am so glad that it finally became a reality. To have the classic DCAU voice acting ensemble of Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Tara Strong back together once again was the icing on the cake. Aside from the Batgirl prologue which i felt had no place in the movie and wasn't needed. I tend to quickly skip that part lol I honestly think it could have worked better as a DC Showcase short and thrown on the dvd / blu ray as an bonus feature. Overall, it was a very well done movie and not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.
I don't know why they didn't just make an anthology movie. Just do a straightforward adaptation of The Killing Joke without all of the filler crap at the beginning and then adapt some other stories, too. Maybe one of them could be about Batgirl becoming Oracle and dealing with the aftermath of TKJ. I felt that The Killing Joke is highly overrated. The artwork is excellent, but I really hate the ending with Batman sharing a laugh with the guy that just tortured his friends.
I saw _The Killing Joke_ film before ever reading the comic. The bits they added - the ones you're teaching me that most viewers object to - were precisely the parts I most enjoyed. To wit, seeing the flawed, imperfect, grown-up versions of these childhood myths that our younger selves weren't allowed to know about. The rest - meaning the content of the original comic - just seemed to me like a tawdry video nasty. Unmotivated violence with no satisfactory resolution. I never bought the _one bad day_ theory either. Maniacs like the Joker are either born, or else made via slow-and-steady reinforcement of the wrong neural pathways. But I'm not suggesting that anyone else should think this way. Loads of people want violence and body horror in their art. Personally, I've never been able to sit through a single Martin Scorcese film. And he's hailed as an uncontested genius. So I'm willing to accept there's something wrong with me. What I thank you for most is that your video showed me how gorgeous Brian Bolland's art in _The Killing Joke_ actually is. For some reason, the digital edition I have just doesn't do it justice. But your video - digital too, I know - elevates it. Even if I don't appreciate the unremittingly grim story, I can now at least revel in the super-deluxe lines and colours. Thank you!
You're welcome! I totally see where you're coming from, and it's an interesting perspective you've shared. I feel most of the negative opinions are shared by those that are very familiar with the comic. But I could be wrong, let's see what people say when the video goes live! :)
To each our own when it comes to Scorsese. My parallel on your views on his movies would be the stuff done by Robert Rodriguez outside of his Desperados trilogy and without occasional collabs with Quentin Tarantino... I swear, Spy Kids needs to be forgotten.
TBH I HATE “The Killing Joke” entirely and wish it’d go away with “The Dark Knight Returns”. These 2 stories have seemed to DOMINATE basically the entire DC story ethos for over almost 2 straight up decades now. These stories always seemed too “edgelord” and “grimdark” and therefore upping the ante with copies of copies of copies in the “modern era” makes me hate this story more and more. Please NO MORE KILLING JOKE “inspired” stories, or just The Joker in general. Lol.
The movie wasn't a complete failure, but one bad act or part can spoil what is otherwise a masterpiece. I remember watching this and being put off at the very specific point: The Bruce and Barbara sex scene. Batman isn't perfect. We've seen him make bad decisions before, but that particular scene is more than a man and a woman who deeply care about one another giving into a moment of passion. It's not completely unbelievable. I could see Barbara slipping and having thoughts like that and trying. I've seen depictions of her, including in BTAS where the voice actors are shared, where she fantasizes about Bruce. But for Bruce, he has to make not one but many questionable choices in that moment, and Batman is not known to have a weak will, a lack of restraint, or to sacrifice important relationships for short term gains. He is no stranger to suffering and always seems to prefer to suffer himself than to salve his emotions at the potential cost of others. Things that are true for the film. -Losing himself in a moment of passion with a gorgeous woman in an inappropriate time and place. -Making a mistake with the emotions of a member of his beloved batman family, and then overcompensating in the opposite direction. -Making a sexual move with a valued friend/family/ally that will forever alter their relationship. -Sleeping with the daughter of a man who you see as one of his closest and most trustworthy friends, who puts his life and career on the line for Bruce. I concede that even though I find it incredibly unlikely that Bruce would do all these problematic things at once, it is possible. It feels out of character though. And I also concede that it adds emotion and stakes to the plot though I feel at too high a cost. This sexually motivated storytelling point is complicated more by the broad and inconsistent mythos of The Batman. There are things that aren't necessarily true to the film, but are beliefs that are embedded in the mythology of Batman that viewers of the film are very likely to be familiar with. You do not expect this to be anyone's first Batman story. -Is this the same universe where Barbara has been romantically involved with Dick Grayson? Bruce moving in on an ex or current partner of his adopted son makes things more tangled, complicated and kind of gross. -Barbara's age varies or is ambiguous in different stories - is she a half generation behind Bruce, or is she closer to a full generation behind? Bruce considers Jim a father figure to an extent, but so too does Barbara have a daughter role to Bruce in the Bat Family. She is Batgirl, after all, and never Batwoman. She seems much more like an equal to Bruce in this film, but that history in outside media casts a massive shadow. Finally, I can't really back this point up with facts or anything so feel free to disregard it if doesn't make sense to you. Because the characters got in this situation where it felt so very out of character to my view, I had this weird feeling I was watching something sexual that someone personally wanted to see, rather than something that fit with the film itself. It felt so off to me that I had this feeling of having someone's fantasies or fetishes shoved in my face in a place where I did not expect or find it appropriate. Like playing Dungeons and Dragons with a creepy game master who wants to role play what gets them off. This is just a feeling, but it was a powerfully negative one that I could not shake. Once a feeling of grossness or violation crept into the film, it never left and I couldn't enjoy the story as I was meant to with the shadow of this scene looming over the rest of the plot. In short, the merits of the scene seem to never be able to outstrip the many actual and potential problems with it. Batman can and should make mistakes, but NEVER should he feel like a potential pervert to a daughter figure regardless of Barbara's feelings or desires. The basic idea of a daughter having conflicted romantic feelings for her adopted father/mentor are much more acceptable than that father/mentor reciprocating those feelings and Batman does not seem to have those particular weaknesses outside of this one superfluous sexual act in this film. I get that my inability to separate family lore from other Batman tales from this one is largely a shortcoming of my own, but it seems to be a problem much of the fandom has with this scene. I hope others will agree/disagree because it was weird to put this into words and I want to know what other viewers felt.
Bruce Timm had Batman date Barbara in the mid 90's. Batman Beyond confirms they dated and Barbara is in Bruce's montage of past lovers. Also in the context of the Bruce Timm version of Batman's universe no, Barbara is not one of Batman's adopted kids. Barbara met Bruce for the first time when she was like 22 years old. She was a full adult. Bruce Timm has never made the teenage Batfamily version of Barbara that grows up with Bruce. That didn't happen in Bruce Timm's version. She was a college student that dates Bruce after Robin has his little freak out and leaves forever.
I don't know what happened to bruce timm. Between batman and harley quinn & this. He went off the rails. That opening with Batgirl? Should have be different with Commissioner Gordon or something else.
Bruce Timm has always used Bruce Wayne as his self insert character, I mean they have the same first name. Timm got in trouble years ago for putting bondage artwork of Batgirl in an art book without permission. He's always had a thing for Batgirl.
Personally I have no issues with movies showing Batman with flaws. No matter how fantastical he is, at the end of the day he's still human. There are times he'll do something that we just won't approve of because at the end of the day we're all flawed. Yeah the rooftop scene is awful, it's supposed to be, it's not made to excite you. It's made to repulse you. While the topic of the scene being necessary is a discussion all on its own, it doesn't bog down the special for me. I still enjoy The Killing Joke. Still one of the best comics in fiction for me. I just don't agree that the rooftop scene "ruins" the whole thing. You can always skip it.
I'm sure it's been done, but I would love to see a version of the movie that cuts the Batgirl subplot entirely and focuses solely on The Killing Joke. Sure, it'd be about 30 minutes or so, but it would have been so much better.
I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not convinced that the rooftop scene was much good for establishing Barbara's agency. For better or worse (mostly worse), a lot of films use "woman has naked time" as a substitute for "woman is an entire character", and it rarely works because there's still ... you know ... all the things that make someone a PERSON outside those moments. Male characters are rarely established as "real people with agency" via these scene; they get to win fights or say clever one-liners or make decisions that shape the plot. Women just get nudity. Maybe there's a way for that to actually work, but most movies don't pull it off, and this one is no exception. And it really doesn't help that Barbara is effectively getting naked with her boss (in that Batman is pretty clearly in command of the operation and literally gives her orders). That's not agency. That's a writer adding titillation. Again, maybe in another movie it would work. But not this one. Now, granted, I'm ace, so maybe there was some deep significance in Barbara pulling off her top that I just missed. But I don't think so.
I would’ve liked them to merge The Man Who Laughed and The Killing Joke to address the concerns about the film’s length. They could’ve bridged the two stories by showing a montage of Joker cases over the years, including A Death In The Family.
Bruce Timm is a beloved artist and writer who forever changed the zeitgeist of Batman, altering and codifying what we consider are de facto elements of such beloved character and series. Barbara X Batman isn't one of them.
I think the issue I had with the prolonge is that it came off too self-indulgent on the writers end. I don't mind them diving into Barbara's flaws, but here she came off way too unlikable for me to care.
I never read the comic because I'm not a comic person so when I watched it I was confused about the beginning because yeah they had nothing to do with each other but I and did enjoy the movie
This movie is honestly horrendous. It gets worse every time I try to sit through it. It’s not just that taking out the first half wouldn’t make this a classic, it’s that…the entire movie seems so stifled. Like the animation is actually pretty bad. No fluid moments, the actors seem to be giving a boored performance. Go on TH-cam and there’s a better joker monologue BY A FAN. On top of that the comic art seems so expressive that this movie..shockingly lacks. Even worse is that the killing joke, at its core, is not exactly a great story. Be Moore’s own account, he actually dosnt really talk about it and when it does he admits it’s a story that dosnt hold much mending for him. The reason it’s memorable is because a)the artwork, b)the memorable joker origin, and c)the sheer violence that the joker had never actually done before. Sure he had killed people but this..was new. It was the beginning of the darkening of the Batman ethos. But other than that? Yeah. No. If you’re gonna adapt the story, it has to be something else. Perhaps Batgirl ends up saving the day or having a bigger role. Perhaps the live can reflect on how Batman and his story is moving into the modern age away from the silver/Bronze Age. But you cannot do a simple one by one recreation of the comic. I actually feel that’s, aside from impractical, an easy way out.
Oddly enough, when I mentioned the Killing Joke to my table top gaming group who are mostly more Marvel fans than DC fans, the biggest pan I got from them was their feelings about how the "Memories" monologue was crappier than the one delivered in the comic. I've yet to crack open my copy due to life interfering, so I don't know exactly where they're coming from, but I never heard boo about the opening scenes.
My thing with this comic is that I think Joker is a monster but he also seems to really need this. To really need this plan of his to succeed to prove to himself that he wasn't special. He wants to be right, he wants Gordon to go mad because it would mean his bad day would have worked on anyone but when it doesn't. When he loses what else can he do? When Batman offers help he truly looks sad, not willing to accept it anymore after this being his greatest failure. Not breaking batman fine, but not being able to break a man? Well that's worse. Also I do think Joker is killed by Bats at the end along with Joker having stabbed Batman with his poison so maybe bats will go with him.
As a woman with family who has experienced sexual assault, the whole batgirl thing just taints any possible enjoyment I could’ve had with the killing joke. Yes I know of it’s importance, I just can’t bring myself to read it. Barbra was used just to be a plot point. A sack of meat with boobs. Used to progress the story and that’s it. And yes I know it’s just a comic. But for any unknowing fans who have had experiences with SA, it breaks everything. I love Batman. With all my heart. But I can’t love this.
@@SerumLake I do however really like a lot of the stuff that happened because of killing joke though! One of my new favorite like- one shots is One Bad Day Clayface. Got it in paperback and hardcover lol. It’s super interesting seeing all the different takes/opinions though! The killing joke is one of the comics ever!
If you enjoyed that then you would probably enjoy James Tynion IV’s Rebirth run on Detective Comics, assuming you haven’t read it already. Tynion clearly took a lot of inspiration from BTAS when writing Clayface.
@@SerumLake loved it! Made me appreciate him a lot more, really enjoyed his sort of- uncle and niece relationship he had with Cassandra. I’m still mad at batwoman though smh
I'm sorry - I realize that now I might be imposing... But you said you spoke with Brian Bolland? And he told you he invested 2 years in illustrating this story?
Yes, I went to a signing with him at Gosh Comics in London about 18 months ago and the two things he told me were that he spent two years drawing The Killing Joke and that he hated drawing Bane 😂
Finally, it never occurred to me that the way the movie ends with Batman's laugh going longer was a not-so-subtle suggested answer to the Lady and the Tiger sitch they set up with Joker and Bats talking. I personally thought they cut out Hammill's laugh to showcase Conroy's laugh as either a crystalized moment of purer understanding for the Clown Prince of Crime from Bats ending in an auditory freeze frame of sorts rather than "Bats snapped and snapped Joker's neck". It feels so utterly wrong to me as especially given the way Bats reacts to the end of Joker's question about "why aren't you laughing?!" "Because I heard it before. And it wasn't funny, then, either!!!!"
I’ve admittedly never seen this movie, but I personally think it at least LOOKS amazing, I really like the artstyle and designs of the characters, even if I’m not the biggest fan of most of Joker’s “elongated face” look, and I think this has one of my favorite batgirl designs that I’ve seen. Again, this is just one opinion that has nothing to do with the movie itself, I just wanted to say that I love the artstyle.
I don't really like the original killing joke, but the fact that Moore didn't intend for it to be a canon work does kind of help it. It just kinda feeds into some of the worst tendencies of comics in terms of villainizing mental health, fridging women, and treating the worldviews and opinions of the Joker and similar characters like they're worth half a damn. I know the comic is ultimately anti-Jokers mindset (because obviously; would be incredibly silly not to be) and I'm not gonna do the Twitter moralist act about having vile villainous characters, but... God. I hate it when Joker is taken seriously by the narrative. Batman has enough sympathetic villains, can we just leave the guy who is a murderer who quips at his moral peak out of the bin for villains who need to be sympathized with? I don't care what sad shit he may have went through in his past, you can have that same story with a character who isn't perpetually stuck as the local embodiment of senseless violence. I don't care what the character has to say about society, the character is a former rando gimmick gangster who has grown into a self-parody of the American serial killer archetype and decided to become some ninja furry cops arch nemesis along the way. I'm sure you have plenty of fleetingly interesting philosophical points about society, dear writers, consider putting them in the mouth of someone more like the guy with the skin condition that turns you into a crocodile instead.
I have a suggestion about how this film could have been made better. Leave out the first third with Batgirl and Paris Franz and her and Batman doing it. Start at where the Killing Joke actually begins and go from there. Add a few extra scenes like maybe a few new flash backs or Batman interacting more people. The ones they had in the actual didn’t hurt the story at all and helped it along for a film adaptation. In the end you would probably end up with a short animated move that ran about 45 to 50 minutes. That would fine because you could make this a double feature and show another short animated dc movie. I have one that has been buzzing inside my mind for a while and it would be the perfect companion piece to the Killing Joke. One about the origins Of Superman greatest foe. Lex Luthor: the unauthorized autobiography.
I generally have that kind of mindset with any media, I see the intention behind something, and I respect it more for that reason. That aside I did enjoy the film, even with the added content. And to me, the intro was simply a separate story to ease us into the world before setting off what we came to see. I like how we see that Batman is human and capable of making mistakes.
On top of the padding and the obvious scene, the quality of the animation is really not great for such an anticipated adaptation. Many direct to DVD Justice league related movies had far better animation. Considering the detailed art style of the graphic novel, one would expect something better.
this adaptation is meh at best. I do see your point about the extra Barb scenes but.. I still feel like the contrast was poorly executed personally. also does anyone else not get why TDKR is so beloved? it hardly feels like a batman story. maybe its because I've only seen the two-part animated version and don't have a very good opinion of Frank Miller in general.
I’m personally inclined to believe him. Then again, since the comic _does_ leave much to the reader’s imagination/interpretation, I suppose we can’t _really_ rule that out. It’s part of the thought provoking question of ‘Just _how_ far *did* Joker go as far as his depravity with Barbara (🤔)?’
The problem with really great and popular work is that people will always start to read into it more then intended. It is the same with Frank Millers Dark Knight Returns. There is a lot of controversy in regards to if Batman killed the Joker in that one to, or if he killed on of the mutants(just ask Zack Snyder).
I share thoughts about that movie with Nostalgia Critic. Like, how the first part of this is ab absolute rudimentary to The Killing Joke and how they could extend others things, like instead of fading into flashbacks, they could animate a smooth morphing or add couple of minutes for Joker realisation of becoming a monster after chemical bath, coming to his now empty home, maybe even made that old woman, who they needed to pay first victim of The Joker. And how that 2-framed twitching while laughing doesn't work as good as this scene works in original comic.
Did not see the "Killing Joke' animated adaptation, but the graphic novel was performance-praised most for the Bolland art- Moore even once disowned the book. He said it was one of his least skilled writing for a comic work. The art was imbued with both realism and expressionism, with meager action, since Bolland was mostly a "portrait"-type artist, who catered to face-closeups to convey 'feelings' and attitudes. The flashback part of the story was convoluted and contrived- and a preemption of what was most compelling about the Joker- he has no history, and he's intrinsically bad. The stuff with Barbara was trajic and the Batman/Joker end fight was compelling and violent, but the end was odd, and unlikely for the Batman character. But why depict that against the Barbara Gordon character?? Like the Batman Animated producer, Bruce Timm said, "Who doesn't like Batgirl? Maybe the guys at DC Comics?"
I always thought Batman giving in to Batgirl was less about giving in to his urges and more about letting her have her way because she's in a bad place and thinks she needs it. It's also why he basically lets her win the fight. If he had been fighting her for real, she never would have had a chance. Bruce is letting her use him as a pressure valve, basically. This is like a thing in movies and TV shows - a person needs emotional release and attempts to get it through sex - usually a one-night stand with someone they normally wouldn't do that with.
Yup how they treated Barbara is why I axed this and never saw it. It's not just about not seeing behind Batman's bedroom door scenes, we've had that before, but its came off as skanky to me. She throws herself at him and he what doesn't call her on it despite everything they've gone though? Don't get me wrong there's this, and then there's Barbara's actions when sleeping with Bruce while in a long term relationship with Nightwing who was going to propose. Neither make her look good but this is definitely better then that. There was plenty of other ways to fill time. This was just trash to me, which sucks because I liked the comic.
So the point of the Batgirl scene is to give her autonomy by putting Batman down? I think I hate it even more. Like, idk. I don't like the word "problematic" especially for Joker. The man is a mass unliver whose done it to babies. Why are we pretend hes somehow above that? Or that it "aged poorly". I wouldnt even say its a "product of its time". If anything is being looked down upon and lambasted through todays socially motivated eyes to create this over correction. I will say this. My favorite part of the comic is the ending. I always foind that "joke" at the end to be extremely poignant. Joker's way of understanding the situation their in, while being a pretty layers and introspective metaphor for their relationship.
If I can offer some feedback, I would change the way you recounted the joke the Joker told. The way it is read it makes no sense for the purposes of the joke. that1moviegeek says the first guy says he'll flash the light across and that the second immediately goes to the are you crazy line. This not only ruins the beam pun but also removes the main part of the joke being the irony that the second asylum inmate doesn't consider the logic of walking across a beam of light an issue but instead it is a matter of trust thus ensuring the audience that both are insane. Now of course you could pause and read the panels if you were actively watching the video, but this makes it confusing for those that listen to the video in the background while doing other things.
Hearing Mark Hamill reading the Joker lines from the Killing Joke made me realize that this interpretation of the Joker really is nothing like the Joker Hamill played on BTAS.
The nihilistic philosophy of Moore's Joker and the "one bad day" stuff is not at all present in the DCAU, not even in its more adult outings. At no point is there ever an indication that the DCAU Joker is doing what he does out of despair or nihilism, but rather because he's simply a sadist with a flair for showmanship. Indeed, Mask of the Phantasm all but spells out that the DCAU Joker was a psychopath even before he became the Joker.
In that sense, I feel like the desire to see a Killing Joke adaptation tailored to Hamill's take on the Joker was almost misguided from the start.
What I hate about the one bad day thing are all the edgelords who say Joker was right when he said it when Gordon not going mad even after all he did to him proves him wrong. Batman also basically says to Joker "Normal people don't become like you. There was something wrong with you to begin with."
I would chalk up the voice as more of poor direction than Hammil not being suited. Prior to the animated movie, there was a reading of the "one bad day" monologue by someone in Mark's voice(really good impression, btw) and it's how one would imagine the comic. The movie, on the other hand, gave it a poor delivery and mixed it in a fight scene.
I can see him as a "nihilist" in the "nothing matters, so why worry about the consequences? Why not have some fun while you're alive?" sense.
Well, consider that these two Dockers come from different continuities that's what this is. And the comic Joker is a Nihilist and in the dcau of Batman the animated series, he's a monster with showmanship.
The “one bad day” thing did motivate Hamill’s Joker in the Arkham games and he played that to perfection so I don’t think that’s the issue at all.
I liked the movie but that whole batgirl and Batman scene needs to be deleted and never talked about again
Yeah because it was pretty pointless and just feels like Filler
There's a fan-made recut of the film that removes everything but the events of the actual comic; it was made by someone called Blueyoda and it's called Batman: The Killing Joke - The Novel Cut, and it's absolutely worth a watch imo
@@srstriker6420 It's not just pointless, it's disgusting. Batman is old enough to be her father. He's canonically known her since she was a child, and has acted as a father figure to her.
@WobblesandBean And in some continuites Gordon is the same age that Bruce's father would have been.
@@WobblesandBean In the Bruce Timm universe pretty sure Batman and Barbara don't meet until she's already a college student and is like 22 years old. Thanks to Watchtower database we know Bruce Wayne is 28-30 years old during the events of BTAS. So no, an 8ish year age gap is not "old enough to be her father" lmao.
Commissioner Gordon is like, twice Bruce's age at least, Gordon is in his 60's.
Why they didn't adapt Batgirl Special #1 for the first half and instead made up a cringey story about Babs and that rando gangster and brucebabs is beyond me
Now that's a fine comic... well, let's just say they did a Dave Filoni's Tales of the Jedi, so feel free to barf.
@@michaelandreipalon359I love StarWars but I haven’t heard of that, what does that mean?
"I'll lay it out for you really quick..."
Proceeds to give a page-for-page retelling of the entire Killing Joke story
Not that I'm complaining, it's a schway comic.
Shame the Deluxe Edition's "The Man Who Killed Batman" side story isn't included.
@@michaelandreipalon359 it wasnt part of the killing joke (comic or animated) why would they talk about it?
@@FrozenJack2007 An aside would have sufficed.
@@michaelandreipalon359 why? it has nothing to do with the comic. it's just included in the hardback to boost the page count
Well, it IS a short story.
I always thought it would have been better if they had merged Killing Joke with Batman Ego, which is all about Batman's internal debate on if he should kill the Joker.
Now that would make it better as I guess we could see the other villains cameos on that why they’re different from the Joker as he kills people for fun while others just do it for money or revenge.
Executives and producers in Hollywood cannot understand that people would totally be okay with a 45 minute movie that is an accurate adaptation of a comic rather than extending it with a bunch of nonsense so it reaches the hour and a half mark
Movies have limits and runtimes that have to be met to be considered films. They wanted a theatrical runtime.
Maybe The Killing Joke would've worked better as an animated short than an hour long movie.
@Elfenlied8675309 They're Warner Bros. They can pretty much do whatever the hell they want. It can be released to streaming, on the Internet, or they could work a deal with select theaters. Also, there is no agreed-upon minimum runtime for a feature-length film, but the most common standard suggested is 40 minutes. Long feature runtimes actually eat into cinema profits because every minute spent showing a film is a minute they could be starting a new showing and cramming a new set of ticket sales into their screening schedule. Theaters would welcome a 30 or 40 minute feature they can slip into smaller gaps in their screen schedule.
@@tylerbertram7065It’d technically be an animated short film if it were just the original material
A lot of people won't be willing to pay the same amount of money for a 45 minute film as for a full-length one. Extending the film wouldn't cost the studio that much more because most of the budget probably went to the star cast of voice actors, but drecreasing the price to justify the shorter runtime wouod heavily cut into profits and could cause the film to flop (it barely made a profit as-is). This is the main reason
I think it would have been nice if it was a 30 minute short, but they used all of their budget into really making the artstyle as detailed as the original novel.
True.
No they didn’t, this movie has terrible art design and was made for cheap in general. There’s a video by hbomberguy about this that I think you should watch, this movie has like sapped all the more subtle but important imagery from the movie aside from the more iconic panels
@cantthinkofaname5046 He meant that it would have been cool IF they made the artstyle similar to the original
Fun fact: a Batgirl comic book from about 7? years ago retconned the entire Killing Joke storyline to be a false memory in Barbara's head that never happened. They retconned it into a dream in Batgirl #41.
A DCAU comic or a main line comic?
@@CouchCit A mainline comic.
If I had a nickel for every plotline that got retconned into just being batgirl's dream, id have two nickels.
Which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice
When I was a child and read TKJ by first time, I wished with passion to see that amazing graphic novel adapted as an animated movie. After 2016, I stopped wishing in general 😅
Yeah, I'm giving major side eye to this guy for liking this movie.
With all due respect, Luke, Bruce Timm only included that awful rooftop scene because he has this weird obsession with shipping Bruce and Barbara together. I doubt he was thinking of the implications when he wrote it and got his crew to animate it. It was to satisfy his own shipping obsession and nothing more. I am sorry, but I strongly disagree with your take and that fans should be "grateful"
You make it sound like the fans are ungrateful that the film was made. I read the story, and I enjoyed it (personally, I like the original version with the striking colouring), and I will admit that the adaptation is decent, but it is flawed. The animation looks stiff sometimes, and the voice acting was not as strong as I thought it would be. I am not saying it was bad. Bruce and Mark are great, but something felt off about their performances in the film. They have some good moments, but compared to their great performances from Return of The Joker, this film falls a little bit.
I am grateful that DC decided to make an adaptation, but it could have been so much better. The short with Barbara could have been better if the villain was Killer Croc, and during a confrontation, he nearly kills her. This traumatise Barbara and Bruce, and Bruce decides to take her off the case for her safety. They fight, but Bruce defeats her, and they walk away from each h other on bitter terms. No sex scene. Later, Barbara decides to face her fears and confront Croc. She locates him just as he is about to kill Batman. She stops him, and together, Barbara and Bruce take him down. Barbara reconciles with Bruce but decides to take a break from being Batgirl at least until she feels ready.
The themes of vulnerability and fear are still there but not held down by objectification or SA.
This is not about being ungrateful it is about fans being disgusted at Barbara being portrayed as a prop for Bruce's story with The Joker and how some of the nuance from the comic was lost.
However, with all that said, do I think this film is the worst Batman film? Not really. It is not perfect, but at least the film tried to tell a serious story. In my opinion, the worst Batman film is Batman and Harley Quinn. That film was a mockery to the character of Quinn.
Bruce Timms creepy obsession with Shipping Batman and Batgirl made me lose so much respect for him
Yeah because he is like George Lucas and J.K.Rowling
Bruce Timm is no George Lucas he hasn't fallen like him and don't get the JK Rowling comparison
Why
@@captainjakemerica4579 probably because JK Rowling keeps making up weird Harry Potter lore on her Twitter and just says weird things in general
@@2bdaqueen268 okay that is weird on JK but I don't feel that applies to Bruce timm
I really disliked this version of the comic - There are four things Batman should never do - 1. Call Robin names and to eat rats, 2. Kill people, 3. His best friend's daughter; And 4 his foster kid's girlfriend/ex-girlfriend.
And he does 3/4 in this movie. (Thank goodness Mr. Miller wasn't involved in this.) I'd take anti-shark spray over this.
That aside the late Mr. Conroy and Mr. Hamill just plain are used to doing different versions of these characters.
Bruce Timm's version of Batman and Barbara are both adults when they meet. If we're going off general DCAU stuff, Bruce Timm's version of Barbara broke up with Robin when Robin got mad and quit working with Batman. Batman Beyond shows multiple times that Barbara and Bruce dated for potentially years. This has all been the typical Bruce Timm story stuff since the 90's.
@@Elfenlied8675309 Yeah the Barbra/Bruce teased on BB were pretty cringe going back.
Batman didn’t force Robin to eat rats. That was some crazy hobo named crazy Steve!
Nah, it’s just bad direction. Both Hamil and Conroy can do circles around both interpretations of these characters. You can’t tell me Arkham Batman and DCAU are very similar aside from Batman being voiced by conroy. It’s bad direction, the fact that this movie had a budget of like 30 dollars total, and the bad writing that even made its way into the latter half of the movie where it’s supposed to be a more direct adaptation. This movie shouldn’t drag on their legacy, it’s just a shitty movie that even they couldn’t really make worth it
My understanding of the controversy wasn't around Babs having sex with Batman so much as it added a problematic layer to the later incident. They can say it aimed to give her agency to counter prior accusations of fridging but by introducing a romance it feels like it only extends it. Show Babs be successful in a side story instead. Sure she can make a mistake in her crime-fighting but why make it what it was here? The comic incident was delicate enough as it was.
I should note I don't think it's terrible but it is wholly unnecessary. If The Long Halloween can be adapted into two great animated films without changing much then I'm sure they could've extended this into feature length. As is, it's fine but feels rushed & kinda cheap. But that's my opinion.
Actually, this WASN’T the first time that Joker had an origin…in fact; the origin in TKJ is basically the same one that Bill Finger gave him back in Detective Comics #168 from 1951.
In truth, I don't rank the graphic novel that highly. It tries to elicit pity for Joker whilst at the same time having no concept of how mental illness works, and instead opting to have Joker monologue about how 'crazy' he is. There's a reason why I feel pity for characters like Pyg and Hatter, but see Joker as nothing but a grifter. Because he's clearly sane, just evil.
Thiiiiiiiiis. Honestly, if not for the ambiguous ending and that one iconic panel of The Joker after his transformation, I don't think the comic would be as beloved as it is.
I hate it because they turned Barbara into a woman in a fridge.
Pretty much. He's like an edgelord teenager that tries to sound intimidating by talking about how insane and dangerous they are.
Hence Why I Love Miller's Ideas Of Joker, As This Demon Given Human Form, I'm Fine With Joker Having A Tragic Backstory, But I Don't Think He Deserves Pity, Or Sympathy In His Current State, He's Not Some Poor Mental Unwell Man, He's A Vile Creature Wearing The Guise Of A Clown.
Yeah, 9/10 times the Joker 100% knows what he's doing and revels in it. In fact, I'd argue that's the number one rule of being a comedian, a comedian has to know what he/she is doing as well as make 100% sure that the audience knows it too because if that's not the case, people aren't laughing at a skilled comedian, they're laughing at a poor loser embarrassing themselves. In fact, laughing at him like he's a poor loser embarrassing himself was what defeated him in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
Sure, Joker's obsession with Batman is a little crazy and I do think comparing this obsession with Batman's own that drives him to be Batman is fair to an extent, but neither one of these characters is actually delusional about what they're doing and why. Joker being disproportionately obsessed with Batman because of his own damn ego is not the same thing as Pyg believing he's making people perfect by horribly disfiguring them and erasing their individuality.
That’s the point, joker is wrong at the end of the story. He’s not right about it taking “one bad day”, he’s just evil and sees himself as more. Gordon didn’t break but joker did because he was never a good person to begin with. You could almost empathize with him, but he only ever used his tragic backstories as an excuse, not a motive
I never bought the idea of the Joker as a tragic victim. Phantasm's take on his early persona felt much truer to me - I don't think anyone could become the Joker if he wasn't a sociopath to begin with.
I think the "backstory" is him lying to himself (or the viewer if we want to be meta) about it. The incident where he falls in the vat of chemicals is true but everything else is a lie
I don't know if any of you listen to the commentary on The Killing Joke Dvd/Bluray, but it was hilarious having Kevin Conroy admit he was jealous Joker got a Song and Dance number and not him! Almost makes you think about Bruce, in Batman Beyond ,when he was grumpy watching that Batman play with Terry! Almost as is if he were thinking "It should have been me!"😂
I came to see this movie to see the comic adaptation come to life. No one came here for a beginning side story of some gang leader with a ridiculous name or batgirl getting horny for Batman’s batarang. 🙄
Opportunity missed to say Batman's Bat-pole instead
@@UltraVioletKnight Batgirl wanting a some of Batman’s explosive gel. Then at the highest point, the gel explodes.
@@francostevo9939And then the Batman take on Spider-Man: Reign happens.
14:59 If they wanted to give her a role beyond being shot they should have kept creepy Bruce Timm far away from the film.
I mean, they could've done literally anything else than Batman x Batgirl, like a lot else. They could've used all that extra time to really focus in and fill over a lot of the blanks and spotty narrative spots that the comic book otherwise did or could not fill in. Like I don't know, properly introducing each of the characters and giving us a countdown from the good part of their life before Joker comes in and does his chaotic killing joke shtick. Then, slowly unravel his "One Bad Day Shtick" and have Jim Gordon's revelation not only be a one time short and effective small argument and instead expand it into a grand cacophony of everyone being able to move on from Joker's crimes and prove his "One Bad Day" so wrong it should send the Joker almost to his knees. This would make the original ending hit harder and would streamline everything closer around the Joker's and Batman's relationship while expanding it.
If Bruce Timm wanted to make a Batgirl and Batman story, then why not just write another one of his comics or ask for funds to make his own film?
The Killing Joke is, among other things, about loci of control. For the sociopathic Joker, it's entirely external. His wife motivated him to continue pursuing his dream to be a famous comic as well as participate in a heist in order to improve their standard of living. Her death broke his will to do anything. His accident in the chemical plant drove him crazy and the Batman's continued existence drives him to pursue a life of wanton rebellion against all social norms.
The Joker's actions in the comic are him attempting to prove that his enemies are fundamentally no different than he is; that under the right set of circumstances, they too will be pushed over the edge just as he was. Yet in every single instance, the opposite happened. Gordon retained his sanity and his belief in the justice system that he personified. Batman resisted the urge to kill the Joker and adhered to his moral code. Finally, in the film, Batgirl overcame her handicap, adapted to her new set of circumstances and found new ways to thrive. It not only speaks to the resilience of these characters but also to the ultimate vapidity and banality of the Joker's evil, regardless of how unique he thinks he is compared to other "agents of chaos" who spread pain and misery to innocent people.
This is why, as I get older, I find him increasingly boring and predictable whereas characters like the Cavalier who go out of their way to eschew gratuitous cruelty despite their capacity for ruthlessness are far more intriguing.
I don't think Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett and the other writers meant to imply SA. I think it's plainly stating that the Joker has received his gratification elsewhere. I think that elsewhere is the entire plan to drive the Bat insane. Or on the similar foot, he's totally focused on his goal and had no need for the hanky or the panky.
Knowing Brian Azzarello's work I can't imagine that line had any other meaning, but it's good to see that there's someone else out there that sees things the same way as Bruce.
The *comic* arguably didn't didn't imply that Joker raped Babs, even though I can see how people would interpret the pictures as such.
i'm completely fine thinking Joker just T-bagged her and went on his way its way less disturbing than SA.
When I first saw the movie, my thought was Joker's never really been shown to have any sexual interest, even with Harley she was merely a pawn to serve his bidding. The motive of the violation makes him all the more sadistic that he himself gets nothing out of it but the misery it will bring Gordon. It feels more creepy and weird than terrifying I guess, having the SA implication the film suggests.
@@SerumLake The first time I heard "In a state of undress," I cried, but people assured me it wasn't how it looked.
That's of course gross, which is why I think the Joker would make it look that way.
If this writer has a history of edginess I'd go with your instinct on that.
While it is a treat to get to hear some of these iconic lines from what many consider to be the definitive voices for those characters with Mark Hamill as Joker, Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon and Kevin Conroy as Batman, but personally I still wouldn't say there's anything to defend about this film. I think aside from the obvious issues that everyone has already talked about, a big issue for me has always been that the animation quality doesn't really seem up to par and often seems too stiff. It seems like they tried to combine Bruce Timm's art style with Brian Boland's but the end result looked inferior to either one. Also, despite Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy being the best Batman and Joker ever, unfortunately their performances in the film didn't feel like they lived up to the hype. It sounded like at that point they had gotten a little too old to voice the characters. And regarding everything about the first half, what can I say that people haven't said already, it's pretty terrible. I'm also not a fan of the post-credit scene that shows Barbara as Oracle because despite us knowing that is the outcome for her, it takes away from the ending and the emotion it's supposed to leave you with. If they were going to adapt the Killing Joke, honestly they should have made it a short film.
Saying that scene wasn't meant to imply Barbara's SA feels like PR damage control. I don't know how anyone could see the photos taken of Barbara, hear what the sex workers said about the Joker not coming to see them, and not think that's what happened. Neither the addition of subtext nor implications in fiction is remotely new. I don't know how to say the following without sounding insulting, but It's not intended to be-it feels like the only people who could walk away from the movie thinking something else happened in that apartment are used to having literally every plot point spelled out for them in what they watch.
As far as people liking their Batman to be perfect, I always found that amusing. What kind of completely sane, well-adjusted person dresses up in a costume to hunt down bad guys in the first place? Maybe in the early years of the comics he was the pinnacle of morality and heroism-I wouldn't know, as I've not read them-but it doesn't seem like any version of Batman in the last 40+ years has shied away from him being a flawed, but well-intentioned, person.
Probably because Alan Moore the writer of the comic when asked if Joker assaulted Barbara explained that in his opinion the Joker can't even experience attraction or arousal towards anybody. He never has sex, with anyone. The Joker is a completely sexless freak and was written that way to seem more "weird" or "abnormal." The opposite approach to most Joker comics that make Joker obsessed with Batman to the point of basically being gay and only loving Batman.
For me, a "perfect" Batman should be one who almost always never gets hit by the numerous foes all around; the Batman: Arkham games are a fine way to express that, until the bloody cutscenes happen.
the photos COULD if the idea was to screw with Gordon and make him think Joker did something, but everyone and their uncle seems to prefer blatantly confirming or denying what Joker possibly could have done, allegedly.
@GribbleGob The issue with the idea that Joker "faked" the assault just to mess with Gordon is that there's no reason for him (Joker specifically) to do it. A less evil person who only wanted to hurt the guy he had a beef with but didn't want to harm the daughter might do it, but Joker is pure evil. Why would he fake an assault to hurt the father when he can do the assult for real and hurt both?
As for the theory that Joker is asexual and therefore wouldn't do it, that doesn't make sense either. In real life most cases of prison sexual abuse is done by heterosexual men on other men, they don't do it for sexual pleasure but for other purposes like as a power move or just for sadism. Joker might be unable to feel sexual attraction but even then he would know that sexuality can be used to hurt people, and he definitely enjoys hurting people.
@@exantiuse497 I mean.. the Joker's whole bit is unhinged lunacy, he would probably find it really funny to make something think SA happened, but I see your point.
This story, film or comic, is a damn hard one to navigate because of just how deeply it dives into it's subject matter and how hard it goes in an effort to make it's point. I don't know that I really want to try and argue opinion against opinion on this one, because the subjective nature of opinion and it's connection to personal experience means reactions to something like this are going to just be really wild and polarizing.
But I can examine adaptation decisions, I think.
Adaptation is a most thankless kind of writing job, because an adaptation of any work is not the original work, but someone's interpretation and just by nature of interpretation, no two people are going to see the same text the same way. It's therefore an extremely difficult job to adapt anything from one medium to another. Even original authors can have difficulty with that, because not only because different media have different ways of engaging the audience, but also because people change over time and even the original author will interpret his own work differently over time.
Because of all this, people are going to disagree with adaptation decisions you make no matter what you do. To give an example, Christopher Tolkien really hated the LotR movies. He felt they were mindless action movies that completely missed the core of his father's work. And while I don't think it's fair to hate them, I can definitely see his argument that they missed the core. I don't fully agree with him on that, but there are definitely some aspects of the books that the movies failed to capture, or outright discarded.
I can also understand why he hated them, because those works were something very special to him - a literal gift from his father to him when he was a child. It held a lot of emotional weight to him that it wouldn't for other people, at least not in the same way. So, for the films to gloss over the parts that were most meaningful to him would have absolutely felt like a betrayal.
Going back to this movie, I feel kind of the same way here, but I think I more side with people who say the adaptation fails more than it succeeds.
For starters, the extra material with Barbara, whatever else it has going for it, simply does not feel like it is meant to be part of the story, because, as you say, it isn't. You say that it works better if you treat it as supplemental material, and that may be true, but the way it's presented doesn't feel supplemental. The way that it is included as a part of the film basically signals to the audience that this is part of the story, so the audience reacts to it that way, which makes the very significant shift from new material to the source material feel really clunky and bothersome. It forces the audience to switch gears too hard. If it had been included separately, as a bonus story created by the authors, I think audience reception to it would have been less harsh, because that would have changed the way they engaged with it. It would have been easier for the audience to engage it as intended. While this kind of adaptation error is not the worst you can make, when you're dealing with source material *this* heavy and *this* well regarded and by nature *this* polarizing, it's the kind of mistake that is really going to throw off a lot of people.
There are other issues I have with the adaptation of the actual source material, as well. The animated version has way less attention to fine detail. Stuff like the mug that says "you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps," may seem like an incidental detail, but it is actually important because it reinforces the theme of the story. It takes a flippant joke - that going insane makes things easier - and makes you question that. Did going insane actually make things easier for Joker? I really think not.
It's also way less thoughtful about the framing of shots than the comic is. Part of this comes from the fact that a comic only having still frames means you can focus on very specific shots that have much more effective control over the framing, but even taking that into account, some of the shots are much less thoughtful than the comic, treated less as opportunities to convey meaning and more just an attempt to get from point A to point B in the story.
Then you have the difference the "Why aren't you laughing" line. In the comic, the Joker seems desperate, almost afraid. You can imagine him trembling as he delivers that line, because his world view is being challenged by events he can't ignore. Gordon didn't just say Joker's reasoning is wrong, he proved it by not going insane despite all that Joker did. Joker is falling into despair in that moment because he's realizing that he didn't have to go insane to cope with what happened, he chose to (in a way, this is very complicated, but speaking from experience, I feel there's good reason to think that's how Joker might, in that moment, be reading events). And then the final speech he gives is less about him justifying it and more realizing that he doesn't have the strength of will to even try to change himself, because he does not want to confront what he really is. Not directly.
The movie's read is more angry. He's more offended by the fact that Gordon and Batman don't go insane. While this is also a way that someone might believably react to it, it does change how the story transitions into the end of Joker's mania at the climax feels. To some degree, I feel it lessens the impact of the moment. It's not enough to say it ruins the adaptation, but because people watching it are already upset because the supplemental material put them off, little things like that stand out more because they've already been put in a frame of mind to not enjoy what they're watching.
Overall, a lot of the negative reaction to this film seems to me to be a collection of decisions piling up against audience expectations and whether or not you hate it comes down to whether or not its original adaptation mistake bothers you. That's subjective experience, but I still call it an adaptation error because it was a problem that could easily have been avoided by separating the extra material into an actual separate feature.
That's where I say adaptation is such a thankless job. It can be really hard to tell what the right move is in these cases and even people with a very finely honed sense of storytelling, who are very skilled at writing, can still make these mistakes that will turn off a significant part of the intended audience. It's a very high-risk/high-reward situation. Which is why I find it so funny that so many Hollywood executives think that adaptations are a safe bet. They're really the unsafest bet there is. If it pays off, it pays off well, but if it doesn't, you crash and burn. There is rarely middle ground.
I was actually surprised to hear you come out and say you like the adaptation, considering how that is so against the general opinion, but I think it was good to hear that, because, provided you aren't dismissive of it, it's an opportunity to look at the story from a different perspective.
I've got other things to say about this story, but I think that should probably be a different comment, since it's more about the actually story itself rather than the adaptation. Also, this comment has already gone on very long. Also also, I've been sitting down at my computer so long, I think I should stand up and get some exercise.
Every time I watch the BrucexBarbara scene, I imagine Rorschach and Nite Owl watching them through a hidden camera, with Walter saying: "Keep touching her, buddy. Every touch of your fingers on her skin will be another broken bone you will have before I put you in a cell" *Eats a sugar cube*
Is Silk Spectre nearby, by the way?
"And that lamented sex scene between Batgirl and Batman was designed to serve a similar role. It humanizes both Batman and Batgirl, showing them to be-" in a Bruce Timm project.
Why is showing and humanising a woman in control have to about sex and has that even controlling both of them wanted to do it? Barb didn’t convince or order Batman to do it. That is the dumbest logic I ever heard and I bet since he ships Batman and batgirl he just wanted an excuse to do it.
I had the bad luck to watch this film before knowing about thevoriginal intro. Literaly my reaction with the whole Paris France plot was "Ok, where's the hidden camera?"
Keep in mind, Bruce Timm always shipped Batman and Batgirl since Batman: TAS. The reason Dick Grayson quit as Robin is because he discovered his ex-girlfriend: Barbara cheated on him for Batman (metaphorically) ! In Batman Beyond, the relationship between Bruce and Babs feels like that of a bitter divorced couple, which explains why the latter acted more like Ellen Yindel than herself.
One of my favorite things about TKJ for me is how Batman genuinely tries to reach out to and help the Joker.
It's a side of Batman I wish we got to see more of.
As for the film: Ignoring the Barbara DLC, the film is pretty neat, as is Mark Hamill getting to do this story (which he said he'd
TOTALLY come back for), but a lot of it feels rushed and and poorly done.
For example, when the doctor examines Barbara, instead of the scene taking its time for him to properly examine her paralysis (like in the graphic novel), he just pokes her feet in under a few seconds and is like 'she'll never walk again.'
The final bout between Joker and Batman doesn't feel as right as the one in the graphic novel. Instead of following Joker through the funhouse
as he goes all "One Bad Day," it's turned into combat dialogue, spouted while smacking Batman with phony kitchenware. And having Joker's laugh stop while Bats keeps going is another addition I could do without. SRSLY, this whole theory of 'did Batman really kill Joker?' really needs to stop.
PS: I do enjoy the addition of Barbara getting set up as Oracle in the credits. That's the ONLY extra Barbara scene I'd take.
Good one with "DLC".
TY!@@michaelandreipalon359
HOT TAKE!
I’m tired of the Killing Joke/Death in the Family references in most Batman media. It’s to the point where it’s becoming a trope and suspense any form of creativity.
"The grave yards he's filled, the friends he's crippled". Can't help but agreeing with Jason. Bat should have killed the joker right after what he did to Barbara.
You're agreeing with Jason Todd? The manchild psycho with brain damage who thinks to stop murderers you have to be a murderer? You're arguing the "good guy with a gun" fallacy? lmao
Well spoken.
Nah. Batman shouldn't kill anyone for anynreason. He should apprehend Joker and the justice system should execute him. I know there's an excuse that Joker won't be executed or imprisoned because he's insane but that's BS, he's not legally insane and would get the chair IRL
The Killing Joke comic was actually one of my first Batman stories when someone lent me a collection of Alan Moore’s works for DC. I pretty much always just skip the opening on rewatch of the movie but my main grip, which I know is nitpicking, is how they felt the need to reword a lot of the dialogue. The main point of all the monologues are still there but a big reason I bought and watched this movie was because I wanted to hear Kevin and Mark deliver these iconic lines. They even felt the need to mess with the one bad day monologue and reword a bunch of it
While I do agree you could just FF past all of the extra story filler, I think the notion of doing that proves that it shouldn’t be there in the first place. Seems to me they wanted it at 77 minutes so they’d have an excuse to put it in theaters and make the 25 dollar Blu-Ray price more justified. But that’s just another example of putting profit over story, which is ultimately why I really don’t care for this adaptation.
HBomberguy also has a video about this movie that I like, because he outlines how much of the brilliance is taken out of not just the story itself but also the comic artwork and all of the extra narrative that adds. IMO, outside of admittedly great performances from Hamill and Conroy as usual, they really did just content-ify the Killing Joke.
All that being said, great video as usual!:)
Barbara Gordon's crippling in The Killing Joke is truly one of the most infamous fridging moments in comics history. Although it is understandable that many fans hate that a character as iconic as Batgirl was left in a wheelchair in a story in which she is not even the protagonist, there are two important things to keep in mind.
1. By the time The Killing Joke was made, Barbara was no longer an important character. After the first reboot brought on by 1985's Crisis, DC decided to make Batman a more reclusive figure, leaving Alfred, Jason, and sometimes Dick as the only members of the Bat-Family. Because of this, many former Gotham heroes (such as Batwoman, Betty Kane, and Ace) were erased from the canon, and Batgirl was retired via a farewell comic, so now she was just a civilian who made sporadic and unimportant appearances. Therefore, it is understandable that DC no longer gave the character any value other than serving as motivation for the other protagonists. Anyway, I bet if Alan Moore had written The Killing Joke in the late '70s or early '80s, there's no way they would have let him cripple Barbara.
2. Something that many people forget when criticizing The Killing Joke is the fact that Moore did not plan for said story to be canon at the time of writing it, since he basically considered it an imaginary story like "Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" . He didn't expect that his graphic novel would fascinate publishers so much that they would introduce it into the main continuity. In fact, one of the reasons Moore ended up regretting his participation in The Killing Joke was how he accidentally left Barbara permanently paralyzed.
That said, I'm not claiming that what they did to Barbara in that comic was a good artistic decision. I'm just saying that there are more complex explanations for cases like this than simply the "pure misogyny" argument many people use
It is not that complicated. The writers did not bloody care about her. But if you think there was not at least a little misogyny involved maybe you should get off your fucking high horse and have a close look@
Yeah, a lot of Alan Moore's comics were simply what if's or simply stories that were meant to see, the negative side of heroes....the man hates, his contributions to the industry, because despite his nihilistic views, he vastly perfer heroes that inspire rather than thr gritty ones....this is probably why, the only adaptation of his work, he ever approved off was the DCAU's version "for the man who has everything", that adaptation cut off, all the cynism and focused on the main factors that made the story great....in his eyes, the removal of the cynism improved his story, hence he allowed it to have it's name in the credits.
Wish people liked the idea of Elseworlds stuff more. Not all long-running tales based on differing works and their authors are great in my perspective, and the idea of Multiverse Theory is truly vast infinite even without the flabbergasted Crises on Infinite Milky Ways.
Still, we sorely need less Oracles, or at least less Barbara Gordons becoming unfortunate PWDs (occasional bad**s moments notwithstanding).
One thing that always stuck out to me about the Killing Joke comic was that, if you looked at Joker's face much of the time, yes he had his massive trademark grin, but everything above the smile was like a completely different expression. His face, and most especially his eyes, gave the look of a man in terrible pain, screaming "Somebody Help Me" or "I'm In Terrible Pain". The fact that this was overlooked in the movie shows that the people in charge didn't really understand the assignment.
Alan Moore the guy who wrote the book doesn't even understand the story. Him and the artist have argued back and forth over things for decades. Moore saying one thing, Brian Bolland saying another. That's not even mentioning that Moore now disavows this book and wishes it never existed lol.
@@Elfenlied8675309Moore hates almost all of his works that he doesn’t own the rights to.
I agree with you, Luke. The film works MUCH better if you start watching the BluRay at Chapter 4 and eliminate the entire "Batgirl fucks Batman" prologue.
It cuts out of the movie so easily that it confirms it never belonged in the story in the first place. What's left is a pretty faithful adaptation of the original Alan Moore/Brian Bolland graphic novel with terrific performances by Kevin Conroy (R.I.P.) and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker. And there's a nice mid-credits scene that teases Barbara Gordon's future as Oracle, confirming that she won't let this tragedy stop her from doing good. Perfect.
Hi again! I haven't watched yet but thanks so much for getting rid of the yellow bar at the bottom of the thumbnail. I was able to clearly see at a glance that I hadn't watched this vid and that makes all the difference ♥
You’re welcome!
Honestly the first half felt like it'd have worked better as a stand alone for Batgirl's early years.
I like to think that Kevin Conroy's reaction when filming the scene of Bruce and Barbara making babies was: "YOU'RE DEAD TO ME, BRUCE. And I'm not referring to the fictional character..."
I have a hard time imagining Kevin would be willing enough to go through with this without Timm pointing a gun to his head
I saw a panel where Kevin said he didn't get the fuss about the scene and thought it was quite powerful. Phil Lamarr was on the same panel and he had completely the opposite view. It was quite interesting to watch!
@@SerumLake r-rare Kevin Conroy L?
@@LenOnTheDoor0000not everyone wants to maul bruce timm to death over these dumb scenes
@@SerumLake is there footage of this panel?
For part of a drama festival or something I once performed Joker's famous monologue from the end of The Killing Joke. Someone filmed it and it's on TH-cam somewhere.
if you find it send it over!
This is maybe the most fair take on the movie I've seen. Was it great? No. Was it good? Well, arguably no. Was it ever going to be? No. Should it have been made at all? Probably not. For all the reasons you pointed out, a filmed version of The Killing Joke was never going to work. But it does give us, I think, the definitive performances from Kevin Conroy, Tara Strong and especially Mark Hamill, who give their all to a script that maybe didn't earn it. The three of them take what would have been a totally forgettable film if left to one-off VAs and turned it into something that no matter what you think of it, we will all remember.
I love the movie, especially Mark Hamils " I Go Looney!" Number!❤😂 This movie is going to get as good as it can get as far as adaptations go but- I know people constantly complain about Bruce and Barberra. Listen people, they're both consenting adults. I 've heard the argument of " Its his best friends daughter" but both have been in many adventures together and developed feelings/ care for one another. Yes, I'm sure it's continuing Bruce Timms shipping but this doesn't bother me. The narrative wanted us( the audience) to care about Barbara before her fated shooting. In fact, Barberra's run in with that mobster was from an earlier tie- in comic before The Killing Joke. I know many of you would complain if the film were a 100% like the original story and had omitted the whole " Barberra Arc", you'd complain how sudden her shooting would be and say 'I wish we got to know more about her before hand.' In short the film would've been 45 minutes and still people would complain .😂
I had the privilege of watching this in theaters, and getting to see the pre-movie interviews with Kevin and Mark as they talked about their BTAS roles.
Let me tell you, it was an unforgettable experience.
Getting to see this comic adapted on the big screen was, Amazing.
The introduction doesn't really bother me, as I think it goes a long way towards showing Barbara as an everyday person capable of handling herself despite the many odds stacked against her.
As for.... That scene. I did think it was very odd and out of character, But I think it's easy to justify: I think that she wants Some form of recognition, and it boils over into that scene.
To be honest, after you watch the first half, the second half feels like a BTK home invasion, making it more chilling in my opinion.
as i like to say "we don't talk about the first 30 minutes of the killing joke film"
Thanks for bringing me on to help with this, hope you all enjoy and have a great day!
I did a comparison review between the comic and movie last year, but TH-cam doesn't seem to want to more people to see it, or so the low views tell me.
As I commented onto the community post, the movie could have avoided the thing with Batman and Batgirl if Jason Todd's Robin was included to the prologue story as a 3rd wheel to keep THAT thing from ever happening. But for some stupid reason they decided to change the order between the Killing Joke and A Death In The Family by making the former have happened AFTER the latter one.
WHICH WOULDN'T MAKE SENSE because why would Batman come have that talk with the murderer of his son after he actively tried to get back at him during the climax at UN incident.
Also, the Joker in the Killing Joke is easier to see as a Death Seeker who wants to die, but is unable to do it himself. That is why he does what he does in giving his victims and their loved ones, like Batman, Harley Quinn, Gordon, Barbara or Jason Todd, a reason to kill him. Batman especially because the flashbacks of the Killing Joke make him responsible for the Joker's current form of existense and the Joker would so want Batman to take responsibility for his actions.
But the fact that he doesn't and most other people never do either, so ends up being the same OVERDONE punchline to the joke of a life he exists in.
Great video, but I don't think that most people dislike the opening 30 minutes because they're "purposeless", most fans can tell what they were trying to do there, people dislike that addition to the story because the execution is absolutely atrocious and it's made even worse by Brian Azzarello's usual use of cheap shock value, they could've easily focused on showing Barbara's agency without commiting character assasination on that rooftop lmao
Oh yes, she had much more character and depth in the original story where she is shot, stripped, and cries in the hospital lol.
@@Elfenlied8675309 Dude, where did I say that in my comment? I literally started by saying that everyone knows the opening sequence was added to the movie because they wanted to give Barbara more agency because in the original TKJ she had none, but the new story Azzarello wrote to focus on her agency is simply bad and it makes Barbara even more defined by the men in her life
"And that lamented sex scene between Batgirl and Batman was designed to serve a similar role. It humanised both Batman and Batgirl, showing them to be flawed people."
They already are flawed people, Serum. Especially Batman. He's a man who is obssessed with stopping crime forever despite the fact he knows he can't do that because of a repressed childhood trauma that he decided to overcome by putting on a bat costume and beating up criminals with his bare hands each and every night so no other kid has to suffer what we went through when he was a child.
Banging your best friend/ally's young daughter despite you're mentally stable enough to know it is morally wrong is not a character flaw. It's character assasination.
The first half was a hard sell that *could have* worked only if it were executed just right, and they executed it possibly the worst they could have. The second half is passible, but again the limited animation and some questionable voice direction even from the greats lead it to be ultimately disappointing.
Also, no disrespect to the great talent of Tara Strong, but Nelissa Gilbert is MY Batgirl.
Also also I cannot fathom how anyone could read Killing Joke and possibly entertain the notion for even a fraction of a second that Batman could somehow have killed Joker at the end. I just...HOW?!?! It literally makes no sense that anyone could read that AT ALL from what was going on.
Because Brian Bolland the artist for the comic book says Batman murders the Joker at the end, and that's why the lights reflecting on the street burn out in the final panel. Alan Moore has said obviously that was never the intention while writing it, but Bolland specifically wanted Batman to kill Joker at the end. Moore described the ending as "Two insane psychopaths sharing there only brief moment of lucidity together and laughing at how ridiculous the circumstances of their lives are."
@@Elfenlied8675309 Well it was drawn the way Alan said it, if Bolland intended different he didn't draw anything resembling that in the slightest.
I'll be honest, I never really liked the Killing Joke to begin with. It, along with comics like Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, ushered in the "grim and gritty" era of superhero stories. They had to be darker, more serious, more violent and so on, and it's a trend the medium is still struggling to get out of 😟
Hmm... what do you think of The Long Halloween and Kingdom Come, perchance?
The Batgirl stuff is the weakest part of the movie. And man can we just stop trying to make Batman/Batgirl a couple?
It's gross. She's the daughter of Bruce's friend and the ex of his (adopted) son. I know there's no blood relationship but I feel like that crosses too many boundaries.
When this first came out I didn't even watch the new opening. I just got confused, skipped ahead, and thoroughly enjoyed the film. I didn't know what people were upset about until two weeks later.
Things i didn't like about the adaptation proper (ignoring the first half and some are nitpicks):
1. Hamill is a bad choice for this Joker. DCAU and Arkham Joker aren't interested in psychologically proving one bad day yadda they're psychos who find murder and mayhem funny. Hamill's joker voice is cartoonish and smarmy which is good for those versions but not for TKJ Joker.
2. The animation is pretty western superhero generic. Plan Making Mammals showed a comic book stylized animation of the trailer and it's so much better.
3. It's a blink and you'll miss moment but Batman shows a screne of Jason Todd's corpse. It's a reference to Batman #428, but it does cement that unlike the comic, the film takes place after Death in the Family. It bugs me that Batman still treats Joker with kid gloves at the end and doesn't meantion Jason's death. They shouldn't have had this reference if they weren't going to do anything with it.
4. Some good shots of the comic are just not done well in the movie, also with Batman havin this big epic fight witht he freeks that makes him telling the joker we need to talk not impactful, Batman (accidentally?) killing the midgets, and getting rid of the mirror fight and replacing it with and unpside down house. Hbomberguy went into detail of even small things like how Two-face's cameo is worse.
Two-Face's cameo is also a 3 second scene in a 77 minute movie lmao.
You might as well be watching some dogshit like Cinemasins.
@@Elfenlied8675309Or Game Theorists, for that matter.
@@Elfenlied8675309 You clearly don't understand how small and subtle things affect filmmaking and the viewer experience.
I mean, Barbara and Bruce’s relationship in the DCAU was purposefully designed to be uncomfortable…something they’ve forgotten
My main problem with the movie is they didn't try to at least emulate the art style from the comic. The Killing Joke Comic is got to be the most cunning art piece that has been put into a comic book. The sheer inner details and depth of the comic is down right beautiful. The movie really missed the mark in terms of art. The visuals of the movie are so boring and bleak while also removing the hidden details in the comic. This is the biggest sin of the movie for me.
Because the comic's coloring was all redone like a decade ago and was made to look more grey and muted. Brian Bolland wanted the bright colors removed. Something about the original comics coloring being completely wrong because it was handed off to somebody else or something like that.
The Killing Joke is one of my all time favourite Batman stories and one of the first graphic novels i ever got for myself, it was one of those story arcs i always wanted to see adapted as an animated movie and i am so glad that it finally became a reality. To have the classic DCAU voice acting ensemble of Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Tara Strong back together once again was the icing on the cake. Aside from the Batgirl prologue which i felt had no place in the movie and wasn't needed. I tend to quickly skip that part lol I honestly think it could have worked better as a DC Showcase short and thrown on the dvd / blu ray as an bonus feature. Overall, it was a very well done movie and not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.
I don't know why they didn't just make an anthology movie. Just do a straightforward adaptation of The Killing Joke without all of the filler crap at the beginning and then adapt some other stories, too. Maybe one of them could be about Batgirl becoming Oracle and dealing with the aftermath of TKJ.
I felt that The Killing Joke is highly overrated. The artwork is excellent, but I really hate the ending with Batman sharing a laugh with the guy that just tortured his friends.
I saw _The Killing Joke_ film before ever reading the comic. The bits they added - the ones you're teaching me that most viewers object to - were precisely the parts I most enjoyed. To wit, seeing the flawed, imperfect, grown-up versions of these childhood myths that our younger selves weren't allowed to know about.
The rest - meaning the content of the original comic - just seemed to me like a tawdry video nasty. Unmotivated violence with no satisfactory resolution. I never bought the _one bad day_ theory either. Maniacs like the Joker are either born, or else made via slow-and-steady reinforcement of the wrong neural pathways. But I'm not suggesting that anyone else should think this way. Loads of people want violence and body horror in their art. Personally, I've never been able to sit through a single Martin Scorcese film. And he's hailed as an uncontested genius. So I'm willing to accept there's something wrong with me.
What I thank you for most is that your video showed me how gorgeous Brian Bolland's art in _The Killing Joke_ actually is. For some reason, the digital edition I have just doesn't do it justice. But your video - digital too, I know - elevates it. Even if I don't appreciate the unremittingly grim story, I can now at least revel in the super-deluxe lines and colours. Thank you!
You're welcome! I totally see where you're coming from, and it's an interesting perspective you've shared. I feel most of the negative opinions are shared by those that are very familiar with the comic. But I could be wrong, let's see what people say when the video goes live! :)
To each our own when it comes to Scorsese. My parallel on your views on his movies would be the stuff done by Robert Rodriguez outside of his Desperados trilogy and without occasional collabs with Quentin Tarantino... I swear, Spy Kids needs to be forgotten.
TBH I HATE “The Killing Joke” entirely and wish it’d go away with “The Dark Knight Returns”. These 2 stories have seemed to DOMINATE basically the entire DC story ethos for over almost 2 straight up decades now. These stories always seemed too “edgelord” and “grimdark” and therefore upping the ante with copies of copies of copies in the “modern era” makes me hate this story more and more. Please NO MORE KILLING JOKE “inspired” stories, or just The Joker in general. Lol.
The movie wasn't a complete failure, but one bad act or part can spoil what is otherwise a masterpiece.
I remember watching this and being put off at the very specific point: The Bruce and Barbara sex scene.
Batman isn't perfect. We've seen him make bad decisions before, but that particular scene is more than a man and a woman who deeply care about one another giving into a moment of passion.
It's not completely unbelievable. I could see Barbara slipping and having thoughts like that and trying. I've seen depictions of her, including in BTAS where the voice actors are shared, where she fantasizes about Bruce. But for Bruce, he has to make not one but many questionable choices in that moment, and Batman is not known to have a weak will, a lack of restraint, or to sacrifice important relationships for short term gains. He is no stranger to suffering and always seems to prefer to suffer himself than to salve his emotions at the potential cost of others.
Things that are true for the film.
-Losing himself in a moment of passion with a gorgeous woman in an inappropriate time and place.
-Making a mistake with the emotions of a member of his beloved batman family, and then overcompensating in the opposite direction.
-Making a sexual move with a valued friend/family/ally that will forever alter their relationship.
-Sleeping with the daughter of a man who you see as one of his closest and most trustworthy friends, who puts his life and career on the line for Bruce.
I concede that even though I find it incredibly unlikely that Bruce would do all these problematic things at once, it is possible. It feels out of character though. And I also concede that it adds emotion and stakes to the plot though I feel at too high a cost.
This sexually motivated storytelling point is complicated more by the broad and inconsistent mythos of The Batman. There are things that aren't necessarily true to the film, but are beliefs that are embedded in the mythology of Batman that viewers of the film are very likely to be familiar with. You do not expect this to be anyone's first Batman story.
-Is this the same universe where Barbara has been romantically involved with Dick Grayson? Bruce moving in on an ex or current partner of his adopted son makes things more tangled, complicated and kind of gross.
-Barbara's age varies or is ambiguous in different stories - is she a half generation behind Bruce, or is she closer to a full generation behind? Bruce considers Jim a father figure to an extent, but so too does Barbara have a daughter role to Bruce in the Bat Family. She is Batgirl, after all, and never Batwoman. She seems much more like an equal to Bruce in this film, but that history in outside media casts a massive shadow.
Finally, I can't really back this point up with facts or anything so feel free to disregard it if doesn't make sense to you. Because the characters got in this situation where it felt so very out of character to my view, I had this weird feeling I was watching something sexual that someone personally wanted to see, rather than something that fit with the film itself. It felt so off to me that I had this feeling of having someone's fantasies or fetishes shoved in my face in a place where I did not expect or find it appropriate. Like playing Dungeons and Dragons with a creepy game master who wants to role play what gets them off. This is just a feeling, but it was a powerfully negative one that I could not shake.
Once a feeling of grossness or violation crept into the film, it never left and I couldn't enjoy the story as I was meant to with the shadow of this scene looming over the rest of the plot.
In short, the merits of the scene seem to never be able to outstrip the many actual and potential problems with it. Batman can and should make mistakes, but NEVER should he feel like a potential pervert to a daughter figure regardless of Barbara's feelings or desires. The basic idea of a daughter having conflicted romantic feelings for her adopted father/mentor are much more acceptable than that father/mentor reciprocating those feelings and Batman does not seem to have those particular weaknesses outside of this one superfluous sexual act in this film.
I get that my inability to separate family lore from other Batman tales from this one is largely a shortcoming of my own, but it seems to be a problem much of the fandom has with this scene. I hope others will agree/disagree because it was weird to put this into words and I want to know what other viewers felt.
Bruce Timm had Batman date Barbara in the mid 90's. Batman Beyond confirms they dated and Barbara is in Bruce's montage of past lovers.
Also in the context of the Bruce Timm version of Batman's universe no, Barbara is not one of Batman's adopted kids. Barbara met Bruce for the first time when she was like 22 years old. She was a full adult. Bruce Timm has never made the teenage Batfamily version of Barbara that grows up with Bruce. That didn't happen in Bruce Timm's version. She was a college student that dates Bruce after Robin has his little freak out and leaves forever.
...Ah, I still remember that weird ending for the otherwise gripping Red River.
I don't know what happened to bruce timm. Between batman and harley quinn & this. He went off the rails. That opening with Batgirl? Should have be different with Commissioner Gordon or something else.
Bruce Timm has always used Bruce Wayne as his self insert character, I mean they have the same first name. Timm got in trouble years ago for putting bondage artwork of Batgirl in an art book without permission. He's always had a thing for Batgirl.
Personally I have no issues with movies showing Batman with flaws. No matter how fantastical he is, at the end of the day he's still human. There are times he'll do something that we just won't approve of because at the end of the day we're all flawed. Yeah the rooftop scene is awful, it's supposed to be, it's not made to excite you. It's made to repulse you. While the topic of the scene being necessary is a discussion all on its own, it doesn't bog down the special for me. I still enjoy The Killing Joke. Still one of the best comics in fiction for me. I just don't agree that the rooftop scene "ruins" the whole thing. You can always skip it.
I'm sure it's been done, but I would love to see a version of the movie that cuts the Batgirl subplot entirely and focuses solely on The Killing Joke. Sure, it'd be about 30 minutes or so, but it would have been so much better.
I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not convinced that the rooftop scene was much good for establishing Barbara's agency. For better or worse (mostly worse), a lot of films use "woman has naked time" as a substitute for "woman is an entire character", and it rarely works because there's still ... you know ... all the things that make someone a PERSON outside those moments. Male characters are rarely established as "real people with agency" via these scene; they get to win fights or say clever one-liners or make decisions that shape the plot. Women just get nudity. Maybe there's a way for that to actually work, but most movies don't pull it off, and this one is no exception.
And it really doesn't help that Barbara is effectively getting naked with her boss (in that Batman is pretty clearly in command of the operation and literally gives her orders). That's not agency. That's a writer adding titillation. Again, maybe in another movie it would work. But not this one.
Now, granted, I'm ace, so maybe there was some deep significance in Barbara pulling off her top that I just missed. But I don't think so.
The fact that "All it takes is one bad day" is just as scary as the Joker tried to warn us something what we do in the future.
There's no excuse for the movie's length. The Killing Joke could've been released as a DC Showcase feature, similar to A Death in the Family.
I would’ve liked them to merge The Man Who Laughed and The Killing Joke to address the concerns about the film’s length. They could’ve bridged the two stories by showing a montage of Joker cases over the years, including A Death In The Family.
@@SerumLake Hadn't thought about it.
Isn't A Death in the Family an interactive segment Multiversal anthology though?
@@michaelandreipalon359 Absolutely. But I'm referring to its length as a DC Showcase, not its interactive component.
I always skip around the first half hour of the movie.
Bruce Timm is a beloved artist and writer who forever changed the zeitgeist of Batman, altering and codifying what we consider are de facto elements of such beloved character and series.
Barbara X Batman isn't one of them.
I think the issue I had with the prolonge is that it came off too self-indulgent on the writers end. I don't mind them diving into Barbara's flaws, but here she came off way too unlikable for me to care.
I never read the comic because I'm not a comic person so when I watched it I was confused about the beginning because yeah they had nothing to do with each other but I and did enjoy the movie
This movie is honestly horrendous. It gets worse every time I try to sit through it. It’s not just that taking out the first half wouldn’t make this a classic, it’s that…the entire movie seems so stifled. Like the animation is actually pretty bad. No fluid moments, the actors seem to be giving a boored performance. Go on TH-cam and there’s a better joker monologue BY A FAN.
On top of that the comic art seems so expressive that this movie..shockingly lacks.
Even worse is that the killing joke, at its core, is not exactly a great story. Be Moore’s own account, he actually dosnt really talk about it and when it does he admits it’s a story that dosnt hold much mending for him. The reason it’s memorable is because a)the artwork, b)the memorable joker origin, and c)the sheer violence that the joker had never actually done before. Sure he had killed people but this..was new. It was the beginning of the darkening of the Batman ethos.
But other than that? Yeah. No. If you’re gonna adapt the story, it has to be something else. Perhaps Batgirl ends up saving the day or having a bigger role. Perhaps the live can reflect on how Batman and his story is moving into the modern age away from the silver/Bronze Age. But you cannot do a simple one by one recreation of the comic. I actually feel that’s, aside from impractical, an easy way out.
0:52 Damn. Just rocked his shit.
Oddly enough, when I mentioned the Killing Joke to my table top gaming group who are mostly more Marvel fans than DC fans, the biggest pan I got from them was their feelings about how the "Memories" monologue was crappier than the one delivered in the comic. I've yet to crack open my copy due to life interfering, so I don't know exactly where they're coming from, but I never heard boo about the opening scenes.
No the comic is controversial the movie is just Pain bad
My thing with this comic is that I think Joker is a monster but he also seems to really need this. To really need this plan of his to succeed to prove to himself that he wasn't special. He wants to be right, he wants Gordon to go mad because it would mean his bad day would have worked on anyone but when it doesn't. When he loses what else can he do? When Batman offers help he truly looks sad, not willing to accept it anymore after this being his greatest failure. Not breaking batman fine, but not being able to break a man? Well that's worse. Also I do think Joker is killed by Bats at the end along with Joker having stabbed Batman with his poison so maybe bats will go with him.
As a woman with family who has experienced sexual assault, the whole batgirl thing just taints any possible enjoyment I could’ve had with the killing joke. Yes I know of it’s importance, I just can’t bring myself to read it. Barbra was used just to be a plot point. A sack of meat with boobs. Used to progress the story and that’s it. And yes I know it’s just a comic. But for any unknowing fans who have had experiences with SA, it breaks everything. I love Batman. With all my heart. But I can’t love this.
That’s a perfectly fair position to take.
@@SerumLake I do however really like a lot of the stuff that happened because of killing joke though! One of my new favorite like- one shots is One Bad Day Clayface. Got it in paperback and hardcover lol. It’s super interesting seeing all the different takes/opinions though!
The killing joke is one of the comics ever!
If you enjoyed that then you would probably enjoy James Tynion IV’s Rebirth run on Detective Comics, assuming you haven’t read it already. Tynion clearly took a lot of inspiration from BTAS when writing Clayface.
@@SerumLake loved it! Made me appreciate him a lot more, really enjoyed his sort of- uncle and niece relationship he had with Cassandra. I’m still mad at batwoman though smh
I'm sorry - I realize that now I might be imposing... But you said you spoke with Brian Bolland? And he told you he invested 2 years in illustrating this story?
Yes, I went to a signing with him at Gosh Comics in London about 18 months ago and the two things he told me were that he spent two years drawing The Killing Joke and that he hated drawing Bane 😂
Can agree on Bane. Drawing too many pecs are a nightmare.
Finally, it never occurred to me that the way the movie ends with Batman's laugh going longer was a not-so-subtle suggested answer to the Lady and the Tiger sitch they set up with Joker and Bats talking. I personally thought they cut out Hammill's laugh to showcase Conroy's laugh as either a crystalized moment of purer understanding for the Clown Prince of Crime from Bats ending in an auditory freeze frame of sorts rather than "Bats snapped and snapped Joker's neck". It feels so utterly wrong to me as especially given the way Bats reacts to the end of Joker's question about "why aren't you laughing?!" "Because I heard it before. And it wasn't funny, then, either!!!!"
Sorry guys, it needed Paul Dini. That was WB's mistake.
In Alternative Universes this Movies is Only 30 Minutes.
I’ve admittedly never seen this movie, but I personally think it at least LOOKS amazing, I really like the artstyle and designs of the characters, even if I’m not the biggest fan of most of Joker’s “elongated face” look, and I think this has one of my favorite batgirl designs that I’ve seen.
Again, this is just one opinion that has nothing to do with the movie itself, I just wanted to say that I love the artstyle.
I don't really like the original killing joke, but the fact that Moore didn't intend for it to be a canon work does kind of help it. It just kinda feeds into some of the worst tendencies of comics in terms of villainizing mental health, fridging women, and treating the worldviews and opinions of the Joker and similar characters like they're worth half a damn. I know the comic is ultimately anti-Jokers mindset (because obviously; would be incredibly silly not to be) and I'm not gonna do the Twitter moralist act about having vile villainous characters, but... God.
I hate it when Joker is taken seriously by the narrative. Batman has enough sympathetic villains, can we just leave the guy who is a murderer who quips at his moral peak out of the bin for villains who need to be sympathized with?
I don't care what sad shit he may have went through in his past, you can have that same story with a character who isn't perpetually stuck as the local embodiment of senseless violence. I don't care what the character has to say about society, the character is a former rando gimmick gangster who has grown into a self-parody of the American serial killer archetype and decided to become some ninja furry cops arch nemesis along the way. I'm sure you have plenty of fleetingly interesting philosophical points about society, dear writers, consider putting them in the mouth of someone more like the guy with the skin condition that turns you into a crocodile instead.
We could've done without the whole Batgirl/Batman entanglement in the animation.
And it's been a While since I've seen your Videos.
I have a suggestion about how this film could have been made better. Leave out the first third with Batgirl and Paris Franz and her and Batman doing it. Start at where the Killing Joke actually begins and go from there. Add a few extra scenes like maybe a few new flash backs or Batman interacting more people. The ones they had in the actual didn’t hurt the story at all and helped it along for a film adaptation. In the end you would probably end up with a short animated move that ran about 45 to 50 minutes. That would fine because you could make this a double feature and show another short animated dc movie. I have one that has been buzzing inside my mind for a while and it would be the perfect companion piece to the Killing Joke. One about the origins Of Superman greatest foe. Lex Luthor: the unauthorized autobiography.
I generally have that kind of mindset with any media, I see the intention behind something, and I respect it more for that reason. That aside I did enjoy the film, even with the added content. And to me, the intro was simply a separate story to ease us into the world before setting off what we came to see. I like how we see that Batman is human and capable of making mistakes.
On top of the padding and the obvious scene, the quality of the animation is really not great for such an anticipated adaptation. Many direct to DVD Justice league related movies had far better animation. Considering the detailed art style of the graphic novel, one would expect something better.
this adaptation is meh at best. I do see your point about the extra Barb scenes but.. I still feel like the contrast was poorly executed personally.
also does anyone else not get why TDKR is so beloved? it hardly feels like a batman story. maybe its because I've only seen the two-part animated version and don't have a very good opinion of Frank Miller in general.
I never understood the TDKR either. It looks like trash. I don't like year one that much, but I get it. TDKR is just pure garbage.
I can at least try to recommend Miller's Ronin and RoboCop versus The Terminator, if you're not into his Batman and Daredevil stuff, plus Sin City.
Alan moore said the joker didn't rape barbara
I’m personally inclined to believe him. Then again, since the comic _does_ leave much to the reader’s imagination/interpretation, I suppose we can’t _really_ rule that out. It’s part of the thought provoking question of ‘Just _how_ far *did* Joker go as far as his depravity with Barbara (🤔)?’
Alan Moore says a lot of things
@@ianfinrir8724 Does he now?
The problem with really great and popular work is that people will always start to read into it more then intended. It is the same with Frank Millers Dark Knight Returns. There is a lot of controversy in regards to if Batman killed the Joker in that one to, or if he killed on of the mutants(just ask Zack Snyder).
I share thoughts about that movie with Nostalgia Critic. Like, how the first part of this is ab absolute rudimentary to The Killing Joke and how they could extend others things, like instead of fading into flashbacks, they could animate a smooth morphing or add couple of minutes for Joker realisation of becoming a monster after chemical bath, coming to his now empty home, maybe even made that old woman, who they needed to pay first victim of The Joker. And how that 2-framed twitching while laughing doesn't work as good as this scene works in original comic.
The Non-Brand Logo on Joker's Camera, "Witz", translates to Joke in German
11:11 one of them did cut the flashlight at the halfway point. Which might sembolize one of them killing each other.
Did not see the "Killing Joke' animated adaptation, but the graphic novel was performance-praised most for the Bolland art- Moore even once disowned the book. He said it was one of his least skilled writing for a comic work.
The art was imbued with both realism and expressionism, with meager action, since Bolland was mostly a "portrait"-type artist, who catered to face-closeups to convey 'feelings' and attitudes.
The flashback part of the story was convoluted and contrived- and a preemption of what was most compelling about the Joker- he has no history, and he's intrinsically bad. The stuff with Barbara was trajic and the Batman/Joker end fight was compelling and violent, but the end was odd, and unlikely for the Batman character.
But why depict that against the Barbara Gordon character?? Like the Batman Animated producer, Bruce Timm said, "Who doesn't like Batgirl? Maybe the guys at DC Comics?"
I always thought Batman giving in to Batgirl was less about giving in to his urges and more about letting her have her way because she's in a bad place and thinks she needs it.
It's also why he basically lets her win the fight. If he had been fighting her for real, she never would have had a chance.
Bruce is letting her use him as a pressure valve, basically.
This is like a thing in movies and TV shows - a person needs emotional release and attempts to get it through sex - usually a one-night stand with someone they normally wouldn't do that with.
It's wrong to make Batgirl and Batman s**
Yup how they treated Barbara is why I axed this and never saw it. It's not just about not seeing behind Batman's bedroom door scenes, we've had that before, but its came off as skanky to me. She throws herself at him and he what doesn't call her on it despite everything they've gone though? Don't get me wrong there's this, and then there's Barbara's actions when sleeping with Bruce while in a long term relationship with Nightwing who was going to propose. Neither make her look good but this is definitely better then that. There was plenty of other ways to fill time. This was just trash to me, which sucks because I liked the comic.
So the point of the Batgirl scene is to give her autonomy by putting Batman down?
I think I hate it even more.
Like, idk. I don't like the word "problematic" especially for Joker. The man is a mass unliver whose done it to babies. Why are we pretend hes somehow above that? Or that it "aged poorly". I wouldnt even say its a "product of its time". If anything is being looked down upon and lambasted through todays socially motivated eyes to create this over correction.
I will say this. My favorite part of the comic is the ending. I always foind that "joke" at the end to be extremely poignant.
Joker's way of understanding the situation their in, while being a pretty layers and introspective metaphor for their relationship.
If I can offer some feedback, I would change the way you recounted the joke the Joker told. The way it is read it makes no sense for the purposes of the joke. that1moviegeek says the first guy says he'll flash the light across and that the second immediately goes to the are you crazy line. This not only ruins the beam pun but also removes the main part of the joke being the irony that the second asylum inmate doesn't consider the logic of walking across a beam of light an issue but instead it is a matter of trust thus ensuring the audience that both are insane.
Now of course you could pause and read the panels if you were actively watching the video, but this makes it confusing for those that listen to the video in the background while doing other things.