Gregg Henry voices Brother Blood Miguel Ferrer voices Deathstroke Christina Ricci voices Terra and Kevin Smith voices Himself It's set in the DC animated movie continuity and not a straight up adaptation of the story. I was hoping it was outside of that though. That was one of my favorite story lines from the comics.
Yes, I too was hoping for it to be set outside of that movie continuity they've been tied to (with two or three exceptions) since their adaptation of the New 52, or "The Flashpoint Paradox", really. Makes me wonder how they'll deal with "Rebirth". Still, I am looking forward to this. I wish it had the original cast and tried to emulate George Perez's art style, but still. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, it does feel wrong that we had an adaptation of "Flashpoint", but not of "Crisis on Infinite Earths".
The formula since the start of 2014 is that each year sees the release of two in-continuity movies and one out-of-continuity standalone. 2014 had Assault on Arkham as the standalone, 2015 had JL: Gods and Monsters, and 2016 had The Killing Joke. Presumably the "Bruce Timm original" Batman and Harley Quinn that's been announced for this summer will be the standalone for 2017. And for the first three years, the two in-continuity movies included one JL title and one Batman title. This is the first year in the series to break that pattern, since we have a JL-branded movie (heavily featuring Batman) and a Teen Titans solo movie (heavily featuring Robin). Indeed, this will be the first DC animated movie since 2011's Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, and only the fourth in the entire movie series, that hasn't been a Justice League, Batman, or Superman title. The reason the Judas Contract adaptation was cancelled the first time, as I understand it, is because the titles besides those three weren't selling well. I guess their plan to introduce the Titans through the JL crossover was successful enough to warrant giving them a solo spinoff. (I also thought JL vs. TT was probably the best movie in the series so far, though subject to the sexism and female objectification that plague the entire DVD line.) I love the original TT cast, but the one they've got here is pretty good. I particularly liked Taissa Farmiga as Raven. I think it'd be hard to do a coherent adaptation of Crisis. I've read the trade paperback, and it's a total mess as a narrative. And it wouldn't work as a standalone project anyway, since it was all about taking the characters and continuities that the audience was already familiar with and either combining their stories or ending them. It was all about rebooting a continuity while pretending it was all still a unified reality in a sense. Which is hardly necessary in adaptations, since every adaptation is a new and separate continuity to begin with, so there's no need for the kind of convoluted bookkeeping exercise that Crisis was. Heck, the ironic thing about The Flashpoint Paradox is that it was made when the animated movies had no unifying continuity anyway. Aside from the two Superman/Batman movies, each one was in its own separate reality unconnected to any of the others. And even though the movies started giving us an ongoing, New 52-based continuity after TFP, it wasn't the same universe we got at the end of TFP. That movie ended with the timeline it had started with pretty much restored, with the members of the JL having established relationships, but JL: War was a JL origin story with the heroes meeting for the first time.
I liked the first TT movie (TT vs JL), but I still wish we'd gotten a version of this story based on the actual comic. Still, its movie that isn't using Batman or the Justice League to bring in extra viewers, so I hope it succeeds so DC will realize they can release more Direct to DVD movies that don't feature Batman or the JL. I wonder, with the New 52 comics being ejected and DC "Rebirth"ing itself into a pretty awesome place, how long the dreary New 52 based movies will last. The New 52 as a whole, while it worked sales wise for a bit, ended up bring DC's sales down lower then they were before the reboot, while Rebirth is helping DC a lot. By that logic, you'd think they'd end the fairly tepid "New 52 movie universe" and either go to no movies in continuity, or a new movie continuity. The quality of the "New 52" movies is so mixed they'd probably do better to just stop making those and start fresh. It would really be nice if they'd stop hiring those terrible New 52 JL voice actors (not counting the awesome Nathan Fillion, of course) as well. If I never have to hear O'Mara as Batman or whatever bad actor voices Wonder Woman ever again, I'd be very happy. Anyway, I'm definitely interested in the movie. Justice League Dark started this years movies off fairly well (except that it treated Zatanna poorly, using her as a fairly unskilled magician and love interest to Constantine who has to be rescued, instead of the ultra capable kick ass magician from the pre-New 52). We're getting a sequel to the fun Return of the Caped Crusaders, and it includes William Shatner playing Two Face. Really, the only movie I'm not excited for is Batman and Harley Quinn. Bruce Timm lost my respect and all the good will he had from batman: TAS with that offensively bad adaptation of The Killing Joke. Now, a lot of that is Azarello's fault, but Timm must have approved it all. So I'm going into Batman and Harley Quinn with rock bottom expectations and Timm's going to have to prove he can still make something good. I actually liked his JL: Gods and Monsters as an entertaining Elseworlds type story, but Batman and Harley Quinn is going to have to be really good to make up for TKJ. As for The Judas Contract, the only thing I really want now is that they don't make the story about Damien Wayne again. He's annoying, and he's not the break out character they seem to want him to be. He was tolerable in the JL vs TT movie, but hopefully he doesn't get such a starring roll in The Judas Contract.
Could be worse it could be set in the Teen Titans Go Universe. I've enjoyed most of the N52 Justice League movies. I think JL Dark i enjoyed the least.
The trailer looks pretty good, but I haven't seen any of the movies since they started their N52 continuity or the original comics storyline so I don't have a huge connection to this.
I have to admit it's weird seeing a straight TT movie, I keep waiting for someone to yell "BOO-YA!!!".
I'm extremely excited about Teen Titans: The Judas Contract and cannot wait to buy it. Arguably, Batman: Year One, DC Showcase: Catwoman, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Parts 1 and 2 were all in the same continuity. Also, I've seen some argue that Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Justice League: Doom are in the same continuity despite having two different Flashes (Wally for JL:CoTE and Barry for JL). Personally, I think they're different continuities within an infinite multiverse. JL:CoTE was originally Justice League: Worlds Collide, a DCAU movie set between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, which was altered to be a non-DCAU movie. However, I believe Bruce Timm said the original script remained 95% intact and there are many elements of the movie that fit with the DCAU so it's quite logical that a version of the events in JL:CoTE actually happened in the DCAU thus making JL:CoTE a part of the same multiverse as the DCAU similar to the Justice Lords universe and the Justice Guild universe. If this is so, then considering the infinite multiverse shown in JL:CoTE, the DCAU, Batman: The Brave and the Bold universe (Earth-23?), The Batman universe, and the other universes represented at the end of B:TBatB episode "Night of the Batmen" makes even more sense. This is why, considering the similarity of animation styles, I believe them to be part of the same multiverse. I would also include Young Justice (Earth-16), Green Lantern: Emerald Knights universe, Green Lantern: First Flight universe, and perhaps all the other universes of the DC Animated Original Movies line. Maybe a version of COIE could be done with this multiverse. As far as the universe at the end of The Flashpoint Paradox not being the same as the one in JL: War, I'm not so sure. I get what you're saying and ordinarily I'd agree. However, there's still the credits scene at the end of The Flashpoint Paradox which connects the two movies. The problem really stems from the comics the two movies adapt (Flashpoint and Justice League "Origins") because even though the end of Flashpoint is supposed to be in the New 52 universe, it seems very different from what we get from Justice League "Origins" onward despite the Thomas Wayne letter appearing. So at this point, I'd say it's sketchy either way plus the differences in both the comics and the movies may get explained away in the near future.
Well, yes, the Catwoman short was made to be in continuity with Year One, although it used the modern Darwyn Cooke costume. I'm not sure the continuity relationship between Y1 and TDKR is that clear, though. After all, in the comics, I believe TDKR was meant to be an out-of-continuity conjectural future, or at least it was usually treated that way, while Y1 was the canonical post-Crisis origin story. I gather Miller has claimed that Y1 is real within the continuity of TDKR, but I think TDKR is not necessarily real within the continuity of Y1. And of course the movie adaptations used completely different voice casts. I'm sure there are a number of movies close enough that fans can believe they're in the same continuity, but I'm talking about what the producers intended, and their official policy prior to 2014 was to make only standalone movies, with rare exceptions. That seems most unlikely. After all, many of those were made for different target audiences, some were less successful than others (there's a reason the movie line stopped making GL movies), and they had various different producers behind them, so from a professional standpoint (as opposed to a strictly fannish standpoint) there's no percentage in revisiting most of those universes. Not to mention the prohibitive expense of rehiring all those different voice casts. I also question whether it's desirable. People have this nostalgia for COIE, but while it did have a couple of important, memorable moments like Barry Allen's sacrifice, I think it was an incoherent story, an overcomplicated exercise in trying to eliminate a nonexistent problem that basically just introduced whole new problems and ended up being reversed eventually anyway. The whole thing was a bad idea, and it's had a pretty terrible legacy, because it opened the door to DC rebooting its continuity over and over and just making a ridiculous ongoing mess of the whole thing. Honestly, fans obsess too much on continuity and "alternate universes" and all that. None of that actually matters, except as an occasional plot device. These are stories. What matters is that they're entertaining. Letting different creators tell stories about the same characters and concepts in different and incompatible ways is entertaining because it allows exploring alternative possibilities and variations on a theme. Any sort of "multiverse" handwaving is usually just a tenuous excuse for those variations, and one that isn't actually necessary for the most part, because we understand that these are just stories and that they're different because different people are telling them. And there's nothing wrong with having those variant stories, and there's absolutely nothing positive to be gained from forcing them all together into a homogeneous mass. Yes, of course that was the vague intent, but it just as obviously didn't work, because the two movies clearly took different approaches. When they put that teaser into TFP, they probably didn't quite know what would happen in the next movie. So it wasn't meant to be a literal "same universe," it was just a narrative hook. One story teasing another is not about defining a shared reality, it's just about making the audience curious enough to come back for the next installment. (Like how third-season Batman episodes would end with a teaser of the next episode's villain, often directly contradicting the actual events of the next episode. They weren't meant to be in continuity, they were just hooks for the audience.) The problem with the fannish desire to pretend that stories can be treated as parallel realities is that fiction and reality don't follow the same kind of rules. Stories are much more mutable than reality, and they can be rethought and retconned and patched together and so on, to the point that it's useless even to pretend there's any reality to them. How do you define the "reality" of something like, ohh, M*A*S*H, an 11-year series about a 3-year war, and its massively self-contradictory internal chronology? Or like The Six Million Dollar Man, where Steve Austin was a civilian astronaut made bionic by Oliver Spencer in the pilot movie but an Air Force colonel made bionic by Oscar Goldman in the series? That's why I generally prefer not to assume two different fictional interpretations of a concept represent "parallel universes" unless they're explicitly defined that way within the narrative. Of course, in comics there's a long tradition of pretending all the alternate versions are parallel realities no matter how bizarre and absurd they get, but it's not something I take all that seriously. It isn't important to me to force stories into that paradigm if there's no in-story narrative reason for doing so.
If it was done to facilitate an adaptation of COIE, most if not all of those problems could be worked out rather easily because there already exists the beginning of a potential groundwork. I agree with you that COIE has story problems, but they can be worked out. Look at how Judd Winnick worked out the story problems of his "Under the Hood" storyline and adapted it into the masterpiece Batman: Under the Red Hood. COIE is far more popular than the UtH storyline so The Powers That Be should be willing to give it a chance once the kinks are worked out. More than likely, any adaptation of it would be no more than two (and certainly no more than three) films so the storyline would have to be cut down to it's primary beats with perhaps a few secondary ones included. The multiverse wouldn't have to be destroyed. Using characters from previous animated movies and shows would ensure that there'd be a similar emotional impact to the original. There's other benefits as well to connecting the various DC shows and movies I mentioned in my previous post or even all of them for the purpose of adapting COIE. There already exists a lot of overlap between shows and movies as far as creators, voice cast, and even in some cases character design which could be used both for narrative purposes and to cut costs. Even if characters from every DC animated creation appeared onscreen in such an adaptation, most of them wouldn't speak and even the ones that did have characters with lines wouldn't require hiring entire voice casts with the possible exception of that of the DCAU's Big 7, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and perhaps Brainiac. Would it still be prohibitive? Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. It really depends on how much TPTB are willing to invest and risk, because while a lot of money would have to be invested, there's also a huge potential for profit. COIE is very popular and if the various DC animated variants were to cross over in an adaptation, there'd be a huge built in audience.
But what I'm saying is that I don't think it's a story that needs to be adapted. I don't think it's worth adapting. It isn't really its own story; it's an outgrowth of dozens of pre-existing stories, and it only really works as a continuation of all that. It was a product of the specific situation and time in which it was done. Manufacturing a multiverse just to do Crisis is letting the tail wag the dog, and I think it would be a misguided exercise. Because there is no multiverse. That's just not the way the DC animated productions are organized. Yes, Crisis on Two Earths asserted the existence of a multiverse, but that was a story point within that specific work of fiction and was only used therein. No effort has ever been made to claim that it actually incorporates any of the other animated productions. That's something you can believe as a fan, but that doesn't mean it's actually a policy of Warner Bros. Animation. No TV or movie production can succeed by appealing exclusively to a pre-existing fanbase. A comic book can, since comics' readership tends to be in the thousands or tens of thousands at best, but direct-to-video movies need hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers to be profitable. So they have to be accessible to audiences who don't already know the old stuff. Not to mention that the DVD movies' prime target demographic is preteen and teenaged boys. To them, the DC Animated Universe, The Batman, and the like are ancient history. That's part of why WB stopped doing stuff in the DCAU -- because its time was deemed to have passed. Plus the DVD movies, the current TV series, and the older TV series are aimed at different age groups and aren't expected to have completely overlapping audiences. So the "emotional impact" of invoking older productions would only be felt by a finite portion of the audience a current DVD movie would need to draw in. For a lot of the audience, these alternates would be unfamiliar and carry no real weight. It's one thing to toss in throwaway Easter eggs to everything so that the people who recognize them will get the jokes, but the actual story cannot be dependent on the assumption that the audience will get all the references.
I'm not sure about TDKR either. I did say arguably. What I do know is that in the pre-Flashpoint 52 multiverse universe of Earth-31, Y1 and TDKR were in continuity and based on that some are of the opinion because of this the animated adaptations also are in continuity. To my knowledge, there is no official word so far that's why I thought it worth mentioning because as long as there is no official word, it's still open to interpretation. Btw, is it official that the two Superman/Batman movies are in continuity? I know they're both adaptations of the comic and while they certainly play like they could be in continuity, this could still be chalked up to the fact that they are adaptations of storylines of a comic series that were linked together somewhat. I'm not so sure. Again, they're both adaptations and the comics they're based on have the same problem of seeming to be linked by certain things and yet at the same time other things totally contradict this. In fact, Rebirth seems to be tapping into this problem and hopefully will eventually provide a solution. And I'm sorry, I don't really buy the idea they didn't know when they put in the teaser simply because the "Origin" storyline itself is linked to Flashpoint and while the creators may not have known the exact extant of how faithful the adaptation of "Origin" would be by that point, they should have had enough of an idea. Also, that teaser would be quite unnecessary and redundant if the two movies are unconnected because the First Look special feature does the same thing (which has been a special feature for the entire film line starting from the Superman: Doomsday dvd on): teasing the next movie (though to a larger extant and in a more backstage way). I respectfully disagree. There is a basic story that can drawn out of COIE that is adaptable once the connections to previous stories are dropped: the Anti-Monitor is universe by universe destroying the multiverse and must be stopped. Also, I strongly disagree with your characterization of what I suggested above as "manufacturing a multiverse". I will address this further in my comments below. I realize there's no official overarching multiverse. However, there are official multiverses in different series and movies as well as there are easter eggs, shout outs, in-jokes, and a lot of overlap between shows and movies since Batman: TAS of members of voice casts and creators and character designs that were either reused, partly adapted, or at least quite similar between shows and movies. These various connections would only have to be declared or shown to be official . This is why I wouldn't characterize what I've suggested in previous posts as "manufacturing a multiverse". It's not really "manufacturing" if the pieces already exist (more like connecting the dots). Also, I would consider it to be quite a waste for all these various connections to exist and not a single one be taken advantage of within an official narrative, especially since these connections could be quite advantageous to the adaptation of popular comic storylines. I don't believe what I've suggested would only appeal to the existing fanbase. In fact, I believe if done right, what I've suggested could expand the fanbase. Comic book characters such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, et cetera aren't simply known by comic book fans or fans of comic book movies or animated shows. They are a part of popular culture. Some animated incarnations of these characters have also had an impact on pop culture, though to a much lesser extent. Yes, what I've suggested would invigorate the existing fanbase, but also could bring in those who occasionally watch superhero movies or shows or perhaps have a bit of nostalgia for their days of watching Super Friends or Batman: TAS or Teen Titans. Look at Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and its upcoming sequel as examples of how such nostalgia can help augment a fanbase and increase profit. I also believe people whose only awareness of DC comic book characters is based on pop culture could be brought into the audience of an adaptation of COIE. The image of Superman holding a dead Supergirl on a dvd case or cover would have a lot of resonance even with non-comic book fans which would end up convincing a good portion of them to buy the film or check it out at the least. Now just imagine, the impact if the particular Superman and Supergirl were the DCAU version of each, the non-comic book fans would still feel an emotional resonance causing some to buy, but the impact of those familiar with the DCAU incarnations would be even greater and could cause them to buy multiple copies thus adding to profit. I would also point out that there wouldn't have to be a lot of narrative continuity between an adaptation of COIE and previous shows or movies to complicate things. The main things would just be to establish officially an overarching multiverse and allowing for showing the various animated incarnations on screen using some of the same voice actors to voice different incarnations of the same character. If perhaps a small snippet of continuity from a previous series or movie were needed to be referenced, it could still be done in a relatively vague manner and if done right could add emotional resonance. For example, using the example of the DCAU Superman and Supergirl again, if there were a short scene having the two cousins reunite briefly (Supergirl in the DCAU had previously been staying in the 31st Century) then the scene of Superman carrying a dead Supergirl would have greater resonance and for the DCAU fans the resonance would increase exponentially. There would be no need for any elaborate explanations just reference that Supergirl had been in the future and Superman hadn't really expected to see her again.
Their stories do fit together, the first one set up the second, and they have the same voice cast. The only difference is that the second uses a different character design style, because they're both emulating the art styles of their source comics. Yes, of course, in general terms, but not in the specific terms of having the plotline and character design and voice casting set up for the new continuity. And of course the story itself demanded that it wrap up with the familiar characters restored, because that was Barry's mission within the story, regardless of what plans there might've been for other stories. Which is why I think it was pretty silly of them to tack on that preview anyway, because it didn't really fit. Just because that story exists doesn't mean it's worth telling in its own right. It's something DC's creators only came up with as an excuse to reboot their multi-continuity franchise as a single-continuity franchise, which was something they only did because they were trying to be more like Marvel, and it proved to be a bad idea which they've spent the past three decades reversing in one way or another. So it makes no sense to me to want to repeat that clearly failed endeavour. Sure, a few have storylines involving alternate timelines, but it's a plot device to be used where it's needed. And a lot of those recastings are in what are obviously entirely incompatible continuities. I don't think it's sensible to confuse real-world creative decisions like casting a familiar actor with some kind of in-universe connection. That's mixing up two fundamentally separate levels of analysis, the real-world reasons for things and the in-story reasons.
Somewhat connected to this (and because I didn't want to start a new thread), the Itunes special features section for The Judas Contract have given us our first look at the next DC Animated movie, Batman & Harley Quinn (written and produced by Bruce Timm) http://www.cbr.com/batman-harley-quinn-animated-first-look/ If this is real (and it seems to be) I'm hyped. After that terrible Killing Joke movie Timm worked on (he may not have written the really bad parts, but he approved it so I do partially blame him for that Batgirl garbage), I'd pretty much lost faith in Timm's abilities. If this movie is what it looks like (an original movie done in the style, art and writing wise, of Batman the Animated Series), and it succeeds, he'll have made up for TKJ, at least in my opinion. Part of that assumes that not only is the writing like the show, but that they get Conroy back. If another voice comes out of that Batman design, I don't know how well that would work. Heck, Robin/Nightwing's actor is still working and even doing voice work occasionally, so it would be cool to see him as Nightwing (assuming he hasn't outgrown the voice, he's 56 now and hasn't done the voice in over 20 years, so I don't know if he could still do it), although that's not essentiual in my opinion. Regardless, I'm really interested in seeing what will happen. Hopefully the standard "Sneak Peak of the next DC Animated Feature) that I'm assuming this comes from will tell us a biut more about the movie when The Judas Contract comes out, which isn't too long now.