Batman: The Killing Joke animated movie from Bruce Timm
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
and Mark Hamil as Joker. This was heavily hinted at already, but its still great news. This will probably end up being one of the best DC direct to dvd movies.
Oh! And Tara Strong as Batgirl! I had forgotten that she voiced Batgirl in the DCAU (Replacing Melissa Gilbert)! It really is a DCAU reunion. I already was hoping, along with others here, that Batgirl would play a more significant part in the movie than she did in the comic, and this just re-enforces that hope.
So that makes at least four versions of Barbara Gordon that Tara Strong has/will have played, along with The New Batman Adventures, the Super Best Friends Forever shorts, and Beware the Batman.
Tara Strong would make a good live-action Harley Quinn. Turns out she voiced the character in Arrow.
It would be nice if stores would quit putting these in the kids' section.
A good question which nobody seems to have addressed yet.
Kor
Wait, this is news? I thought it was already confirmed a while ago. Or were those rumors?
I'm thrilled that Hamill and Conroy are doing the voices, I was already looking forward to it but knowing it will have my favorite Batman and Joker in it makes me way more excited.
Yeah, that bugs me too. Just because they are animated doesn't mean they are kid friendly. I haven't seen the last few, which were apparently the most violent, but even the less violent ones shouldn't be in the same area as Doc McStuffin and Barney the Dinosaur.It would be nice if stores would quit putting these in the kids' section.
A good question which nobody seems to have addressed yet.
Kor
Some stores really need to get it together. I've heard the same thing has happened with anime at times, where violent or even sexual stuff is put in kids sections because some people think being animated automatically makes it for kids. Its really not difficult to look on the back of the DVD, see the rating, and shelve it accordingly. Its just laziness. To be fair, parents should also make sure of what their kids are watching and really can't complain if they buy, say, The Flashpoint Paradox for their 5 year old and the kid sees someone get decapitated. Still, it shouldn't be difficult for stores to have a clue and put things where they belong, and not make stupid assumptions.
Hamill confirmed his involvement a while ago. Conroy had publically expressed his interest, but this is the first confirmation of his involvment.
First sneak peek, with interviews with cast and crew. From the footage, it looks like a very faithful adaptation, and that they are going all-in with Barbara's story.
Hmm... Well, I said before that there were two possible ways of dealing with the book's terrible handling of Barbara -- either to cut her out altogether (since she's really no more than an incidental plot device in Moore and Bolland's story) or to add material to give her a voice and agency in the story, so that what happens to her becomes her story rather than just a story about the men around her. Clearly they've gone the latter route, as I expected. But it's still something that has to be handled very carefully, and some of the earlier films in this DVD series have not been that good in their handling of gender issues or female characters, and all the creative people behind this movie seem to be male (although no screenplay credit has been listed yet). So I hope they can pull it off, but I'm skeptical.
As for the rest, it looks pretty good. I don't see much point to exact, beat-for-beat adaptations, as a rule; it seems to me that if you want something just like the original story, you can just read it. But the Batman: Year One adaptation actually improved on the comic in a number of ways, I felt. So maybe this could too. Heck, just letting Barbara be Batgirl in the story is a major improvement. The animation style looks good -- they talked about doing a streamlined Bolland-by-way-of-Nowlan style, but the rendering of the Joker seemed rather anime-esque to me in an interesting way. And of course they've got Conroy, Hamill, and Strong back in their classic roles. Ray Wise for Commissioner Gordon is an unexpected choice, since I'm used to seeing him play villains; but he's probably a good choice for this, because this is the darkest hour of Jim Gordon's life, so it needs someone who can play darkness and also vulnerability.
As for the rest, it looks pretty good. I don't see much point to exact, beat-for-beat adaptations, as a rule; it seems to me that if you want something just like the original story, you can just read it. But the Batman: Year One adaptation actually improved on the comic in a number of ways, I felt. So maybe this could too. Heck, just letting Barbara be Batgirl in the story is a major improvement. The animation style looks good -- they talked about doing a streamlined Bolland-by-way-of-Nowlan style, but the rendering of the Joker seemed rather anime-esque to me in an interesting way. And of course they've got Conroy, Hamill, and Strong back in their classic roles. Ray Wise for Commissioner Gordon is an unexpected choice, since I'm used to seeing him play villains; but he's probably a good choice for this, because this is the darkest hour of Jim Gordon's life, so it needs someone who can play darkness and also vulnerability.
Man I am so torn on this one.
On the one hand, I'm always happy to see the old BTAS cast and crew back together, but on the other hand...I know it's comic book fan blasphemy but I never cared for 'The Killing Joke'.
The "shocking" stuff felt almost cheap, like it was done *only* to shock and the basic premise seamed fundamentally flawed to me. By that I mean *of course* Batman is a mirror to the Joker. You don't need to go anywhere near this far to illustrate it and I don't think either the Joker or Batman would be unaware of the parallels or have any illusion that the other needed to be shown as much.
And that ending...sure from a meta, fourth wall perspective. I get it, but in-universe it felt so tone deaf. The only way Batman would have that reaction is if Joker had actually succeeded in breaking him, which he did not. You can't have it both ways.
For my money, the only value I place on the original story is how it eventually served as part of Oracle's origin story, whom I found to be a much more interesting character than Batgirl.
Back to the film though; I'm still interested in what they're going to do with it. Bruce Timm and co. have more than earned my trust and I'm actually very glad to see that they opted to insert a prologue showcasing Batgirl so she's not just a glorified prop; a victim without agency of her own for the male characters to fight over.
On the one hand, I'm always happy to see the old BTAS cast and crew back together, but on the other hand...I know it's comic book fan blasphemy but I never cared for 'The Killing Joke'.
The "shocking" stuff felt almost cheap, like it was done *only* to shock and the basic premise seamed fundamentally flawed to me. By that I mean *of course* Batman is a mirror to the Joker. You don't need to go anywhere near this far to illustrate it and I don't think either the Joker or Batman would be unaware of the parallels or have any illusion that the other needed to be shown as much.
And that ending...sure from a meta, fourth wall perspective. I get it, but in-universe it felt so tone deaf. The only way Batman would have that reaction is if Joker had actually succeeded in breaking him, which he did not. You can't have it both ways.
For my money, the only value I place on the original story is how it eventually served as part of Oracle's origin story, whom I found to be a much more interesting character than Batgirl.
Back to the film though; I'm still interested in what they're going to do with it. Bruce Timm and co. have more than earned my trust and I'm actually very glad to see that they opted to insert a prologue showcasing Batgirl so she's not just a glorified prop; a victim without agency of her own for the male characters to fight over.
That preview was great. I already really liked the story (despite the fact that it has some very problematic elements), and with Timm and Conroy/Hamil/Strong involved it looks like it may be one of the best Direct to DVD movies they've made up until now, and that's saying something since I've loved a lot of the animated DVD movies. Expanding Batgirl's part is a great way of helping the story, and not just in a time fill way. I'm extremely excited for this.
Actually we're in the third year of a cycle where every year features two in-continuity movies (one Justice League, one Batman) and a third, out-of-continuity movie. In the first year we got JL: War and Son of Batman in-universe and Assault on Arkham as the standalone (it was set in the Arkham games' continuity instead), in the second year we got JL: Throne of Atlantis and Batman vs. Robin in-universe and Timm's Elseworlds-ish JL: Gods and Monsters as the standalone, and this year we get Batman: Bad Blood and JL vs. Teen Titans in-universe and The Killing Joke as the standalone.
I've been re-reading Matt Wagner's "Trinity" GN recently, and it kinda got me wondering how that one hasn't been adapted into an animated movie, yet. Would have been perfect, self-contained story out-of-continuity, the three big names, beloved by fans, an art style that would be very easy to adapt into animation ... Would have been perfect to time this as a release close to BvS, too, since, again, the three big names working together for the first time, it has Batman in some kind of armor and WW carrying a sword and shield into the final battle. It even has an Aquaman cameo.
Well, now that I got that off my chest, I'm looking forward to TKJ. I was hesitant before, since they couldn't get Gary Frank's ultra-realistic style to work in their adaptation of "Superman: Brainiac" (which, for some reason, was called "Superman Unbound"), so I had doubts about them being able to properly adapt Brian Bolland's even more detailed art. But judging by that preview, they actually did it.
Well, now that I got that off my chest, I'm looking forward to TKJ. I was hesitant before, since they couldn't get Gary Frank's ultra-realistic style to work in their adaptation of "Superman: Brainiac" (which, for some reason, was called "Superman Unbound"), so I had doubts about them being able to properly adapt Brian Bolland's even more detailed art. But judging by that preview, they actually did it.
Probably to avoid confusion with the lamentable Superman: Brainiac Attacks DVD movie from 2006. That was a weird film that was sort of a prototype for the standalone-universe DVDs of the DC Universe movie line, but that reused S:TAS's character and background designs and most of its cast because it was rushed into production too hastily to allow doing new designs. So that was rather confusing and off-putting. It was also younger-skewing than either S:TAS or the DCU movies, and its Brainiac (Lance Henriksen) was much more angry and emotional than the usual version, while its Luthor (Powers Boothe) was a comical, Hackmanesque version that was just annoying.