The Killing Joke animated film

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It's worth making up your own mind. The Killing Joke portion is awesome, and the Batgirl stuff wasn't bad, per se, albeit a little disjointed. The good thing about it being disjointed, though, is that it's easy to jump right into The Killing Joke part, which is a great adaptation. I'd recommend renting it for the latter portion alone.

I'm kind of a purist when it comes to my beloved adaptations. I didn't like how they did TDKR so its a good chance I'll have issues with Killing Joke adding a red shoe diaries angle to my second favorite Bat story.
 
I'm kind of a purist when it comes to my beloved adaptations. I didn't like how they did TDKR so its a good chance I'll have issues with Killing Joke adding a red shoe diaries angle to my second favorite Bat story.

As adaptations go, think of the Red Shoe diaries angle as one of those short one-shots DC used to do with their animated movies. Once it's over, TKJ is pretty much a verbatim adaptation, and it's entirely self-contained from the first part.
 
My favorite Batman story of all time has to go to Mask of the Phantasm, it's the only story that gives Batman real weight and credibility. It felt very real and serves to only strengthen his resolve.
 
This movie was...something.

The most confounding part was that they made an effort to address critics of how Batgirl is treated as a character in this story, but in the process unintentionally made it 1000x worse -- further solidifying just how tone deaf they are. And don't even get me started on the gay bff stereotype. :banghead
 
This movie was...something.

The most confounding part was that they made an effort to address critics of how Batgirl is treated as a character in this story, but in the process unintentionally made it 1000x worse -- further solidifying just how tone deaf they are. And don't even get me started on the gay bff stereotype. :banghead

Agreed. They indeed made it worse, but I didn't mind the gay bff, as he seems to be written as someone Barbara could confide in.
 
Agreed. They indeed made it worse, but I didn't mind the gay bff, as he seems to be written as someone Barbara could confide in.

Oh, I had no problem with his role in the movie. He's a tertiary character at best -- only there to serve Barbara's story as it is. I just find the stereotype tiresome. But yeah, this film had way worse problems than that haha.
 
I really wish they would have connected the Joker to the prologue somehow. That first half hour is very separate from the rest of the film and feels totally out of place. I think maybe showing why the Joker targeted the Gordons in particular could have been better than Paris Franz. Or building upon the relationship of the Joker and Batman more. The opening truck chase with Batgirl would have been fine had it just ended with that instead of going on for 20 more minutes. And that whole sex scene was so unnecessary. I know they felt Barbara needed more of an arc, but the story wasn't ever about her. She was just a victim and a means to an end. It was always about the Joker proving something the Gordon and Batman. Adding the Barb storyline really takes the spotlight away from the Joker, which is what this story was all about.

When I watch the blu ray, I'll just be skipping the whole Paris/Batgirl completely and sticking with the actual Killing Joke story. At least they made that pretty cut and dry and easy to do.
 
I totally get the rationale Timm and Azzarello had with the whole Prologue. The irony is that the whole thing was basically constructed to placate the feminists who were pissed about this story being adapted, and it's so on the nose, too. Barbara Gordon is a victim of sexual violence, stripped of any power over her sexuality; Barbara Gordon is an independent woman in control of her own sexuality. Barbara Gordon is a helpless, crippled damsel; Barbara Gordon is a strong, capable heroine who saves Batman from certain death and beats a guy nearly to death while calling him a "misogynistic piece of filth." If some feminists can't tell that the whole sequence was crafted as a love letter to them by a couple of guys who were attempting to be thoughtful about a controversial work, I don't get it.

Personally, I would've cut the whole sequence. The Killing Joke is underestimated because of its length, but it isn't exactly a book that you just breeze through. It's pretty much like any other Alan Moore story in the sense that it's a relatively slow, ponderous story. Even though the actual adaptation was only about 40 minutes, it felt like 70, and the prologue just made it drag.

Bruce Timm ruined TKJ.

Batgirl was only good for getting shot by the joker and getting raped by those weird joker midgets...that was her one and only contribution.

She was never meant to be a strong female role model or a feminist. She's just another worthless sidekick to make Batman look cool.

:chase
 
Well, finally saw this.

It sucked.

I don't care for Batgirl, I don't care for the feminist complaints. The Bargirl parts sucked because they were bad, unrelated on any gender politics, they were bad on their own, just like most of the recent animated DC stuff is bad, simplistic, cliché, out of character, etc etc.

Animation was ok, colors were bad, art style was bad, even the voices felt out of place, not even Hamill and Conroy can save this one.

And if this had been anything other than TKJ, my standards would be looser, but nope. As a DC animated movie, even more so in recent times, it's probably one of the best ones, but as a TKJ adaptation, it never should've happened like this.
 
I guess I'm in the minority but I enjoyed it. The Batgirl beginning was weird but it makes sense in wanting people to feel bad for Barbara being shot by giving her a backstory within the movie.

I don't understand when people complain about going to see a movie, we're in a group where people spend $300-$1k on figures and toys and $10 to go out and see a movie is too much?


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The thing about the The Killing Joke graphic novel is that it wasn't about Batman or Batgirl, it was about The Joker. It's his story. This isn't Batgirl's story. Nothing about Batgirl is necessary because we've all grown up with her. That's why the scene was so powerful for me when I read the book as a kid because all I knew of Batgirl was from the '66 Batman series, so imagining Joker shooting Yvonne Craig and molesting her was sickening, as I'm sure the author intended it to be. If people were going to get upset over her just being portrayed as a victim then the story wasn't meant for them anyway.
 
I really do want to see this film. Hearing and seeing a lot of mixed feelings about it. It comes out on Blu-Ray next Tuesday so I'll pick it up then and see. The Graphic Novel itself was always a intense ride and it sounds this film steers in a different direction to differ itself from it.
 
Holy moly, voice acting aside, this was terrible in every way imaginable. What a letdown.
 
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