The Killing Joke (OFFICIAL Trailer) out now

This is going to be absolutely fantastic.

I can quote the entire carnival monologue by heart. When I was 10 I used to have the joker shirt of him taking off the red hood. So hyped.

one last hoorah for kevin conroy and mark hamil? sure why not!!

Boy I am not feeling the animation in this.

@crithon: Troy Baker did a good job with it back in 2013

This is probably going to be the raddest shit ever, but... I wonder how they'll handle the "Barbara photos" scene with naked Gordon. The comic kept it vague and that's what made it effective yet not uncomfortable. Hopefully, this doesn't see a need to take it further than that.

Anyway! HOLY SHIT THIS LOOKS AWESOME! Also, I'll reaffirm what another said about Baker: he was a damn good sub for Hamill as Joker. Generally, I really love it when the "every person" voice actors like Baker, North or Bailey get to show their range.

As someone who grew up with The Animated Series, I sadly agree. If they kept the voices, did they really need to change the art style so much?

Is Will Smith Cum Face meme still a thing??

Can't wait for it.

@spaceinsomniac: They're trying to base it on the artwork in The Killing Joke, some of the panels in that thing are downright iconic, but their faux Brian Bolland art is so low rent it's a real disservice. I had similar feelings with their adaptions of Year One and The Dark Knight Returns.

The animation looks really stiff and weird. Love that it it's still Hamill and Conroy though.

Sucks they are doing this low budget animation for it

I keep thinking of the band I see this thread.

Guys, honestly... all of these animated batman comic movies have sucked.

@ozzdog12: yeah, I recall that and that scene in the game is worth price of admission. As much as he is doing a good Mark Hamill inspiration..... Hamill is so damned good as Joker, just even The Man Who Killed Batman and Return of the Joker hold up as his best monologues.

they are also inspired by Kevin Nowlan artwork who did work with Timm, Murakami and Del Carmen back in the day because it's simplified for animation but has that weight of realism which similar to Brian Bolland.

They went with an animation style that they thought would somewhat resemble the comic, but it doesn't compare at all in my opinion.

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded at all if they just made it look like the rest of Bruce Timm's animated universe.

Not really digging the animation quality there :|

Uh no they haven't, in fact most have been very highly rated.

@crithon said:

@ozzdog12: yeah, I recall that and that scene in the game is worth price of admission. As much as he is doing a good Mark Hamill inspiration..... Hamill is so damned good as Joker, just even The Man Who Killed Batman and Return of the Joker hold up as his best monologues.

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@atomicoldman said:

@spaceinsomniac: They're trying to base it on the artwork in The Killing Joke, some of the panels in that thing are downright iconic, but their faux Brian Bolland art is so low rent it's a real disservice. I had similar feelings with their adaptions of Year One and The Dark Knight Returns.

they are also inspired by Kevin Nowlan artwork who did work with Timm, Murakami and Del Carmen back in the day because it's simplified for animation but has that weight of realism which similar to Brian Bolland.

It's cheaper with less frames of animation, which could work but the actual art style doesn't look very good especially compared to the original comic.

I've never read this comic(been meaning to for a long time) so maybe the story will hold it's own in the movie where the art will be more forgivable.

I understand wanting to stick with a certain look, but should that really affect how it all actually moves?
Anyway, I can't wait to see that one scene when joker and Batman are laughing together.

I think it looks good, but something about the animation seemed jittery. Like the framerate was too low.

Tut tut, the complaints here are killing my buzz. This looks good to me.

Oh boy, the animation and art-style for this doesn't look that good. They said they wanted to find something in between the comics' visuals and the usual DC animations but I don't think this is works at all, it looks "flat" which is the opposite of the source material. They should have went with the dark tones of the 90's animated series and their usual character designs, I think it would work much better.

It's a shame that one of the most praised Batman stories gets an animation that looks so low budget it almost feels like a Flash animation (the software, not the DC character).

This is the first thing I've heard / seen of this so am excited to give it a whirl.

Batman Batman Batman people.

This looks very good, although I find myself missing the animation style of the earlier DCAU offerings. They kind of lost me after Justice League Unlimited, at least where the art and animation is concerned. I really love the clean look of Batman: TAS through JLU, but I understand wanting to try to adhere more closely to the appearance of the comic artwork. Still, I’m not totally digging it. The voice work, however, is stellar. There is no one that can hold a candle to either Kevin Conroy or Mark Hammill. When I read Batman comics, those are the voices I hear, and I don’t think anything will change that.

I’m totally sidetracking here, but to me, The Killing Joke is the quintessential Batman comic. I put it over Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween, and even The Dark Knight Returns. On the other hand, it also was part of a huge glut of taking heroes and dragging them through the mud, making them darker and blurring the line between what a hero is versus what a villain is. For Batman, I think that that worked very well. For other heroes, such as Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman, just to name a few, I don’t think that that is the case. It made a lot of early 90s comic books more dark than they really should have been. Coupled with the fact that there are creator misgivings about what was done to Barbara Gordon, which I personally find very persuasive, it’s certainly something to consider, at least, when introducing this story to a new generation of people and reintroducing it to people already familiar with it.

I myself found the comic, upon initial reading of it, to be fantastic. I still do. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is show Batman and the Joker as mirror images of each other. Also, that a person is only one bad event, or culmination of many bad events, away from totally losing their sanity. I remember some of the images being really striking, and the final confrontation between Batman and the Joker was pretty amazing.

On the other hand, seeing a character like Barbara Gordon being used only as a means to harm Commissioner Gordon and, even though it was unintentional, Batman himself was pretty horrible. She wasn’t attacked because she was Batgirl, which would be slightly more acceptable, given her vigilante work, but because she was someone’s daughter. It’s a common trope in comics especially, but that doesn’t mean that it is an excuse either. Of course, it was even more cutting in that they added the sexual dimension to the assault and degradation (the stripping and photographing of a bleeding and helpless Barbara). I suppose the only good thing to come out of using her in that way was that she became Oracle and was the star of a popular series (Birds of Prey) and became integral in many other company wide storylines.

Looking back on the story, Alan Moore stated in an interview (I pulled this from Wikipedia article about the comic) -

“I asked DC if they had any problem with me crippling Barbara Gordon - who was Batgirl at the time - and if I remember, I spoke to Len Wein, who was our editor on the project ... [He] said, 'Yeah, okay, cripple the bitch.' It was probably one of the areas where they should've reined me in, but they didn't."

Now, I understand that Alan Moore has a long history of talking down his own comics, companies that he has worked with, and about any other thing that may cross his mind, so I take everything he says with a slight sprinkle of skepticism. But, do I believe that an editor at DC said “cripple the bitch” in regards to the character? Yes, absolutely. This is the same company that held a poll to see whether the current Robin would live or die not soon after The Killing Joke, so their attitude towards characters could be viewed as somewhat cavalier during that time period. On one hand, I think letting your creators have freedom to write the stories they want to write is important. On the other, I feel a real sense of disquiet when I see that a character was so callously talked about and that her torture and subsequent long-term paralysis was so flippantly approved. Either way, it adds a dimension to the book and the time period in which it was written that I am unable to just think away in good conscience.

I’m not trying to get into a debate about the comic, but as I grow older, I find myself looking back on stuff that I read, played, and watched as a younger person and evaluating it in a different way. I love The Killing Joke. I loved that Batman: Arkham Knight did their own riff on it. I think that it was probably one of the more effective parts of the story in that game. What I am trying to articulate is that I find that the things that were so awesome when I was in high school and college are maybe not so awesome, or maybe they are awesome for different reasons that I never considered before.

@dudeglove said:

@mordukai said:

Is Will Smith Cum Face meme still a thing??

His new Twitter avatar seems suspiciously familiar...

Will "Headroom" Smith.

Ahhhh. The memories. Thanks man.

@jadegl: Since you seem to be rather passionate about your Batman comics I have 2 questions.

1. What are your thoughts about A Serious House on a Serious Earth?

2. How are the New 52 storyline?

I personally love A Serious House on a Serious Earth from every aspect but I know it is rather polarizing with fans. Maybe they went a bit too far but it is a story of man going insane.

As far as Killing Joke then I agree. It is probably more important then any other Batman work. I am in the camp of no Joker origin stories but for this one it worked and Moore also made it ambiguous with a later line.

Concerning Barbara Gordon. I think Joker fully knew who she was since to me the purpose of his doings was not to get Commissioner Gordon but to get Batman. That's at least what I got from the ending.

@jadegl: I generally agree with this. The Killing Joke is generally a great comic, and it is, for better or worse, an incredibly influential and significant comic (The Oracle and the decades-long 'death' of Batgirl), but it is the product of a simpler time - and I don't mean that wistfully. Barbara was reduced from the complex character that she was to a victim of the highest order in order to hurt Batman and the Commissioner. I just don't think this story has a place amongst the stories of today, and revisiting it is tough, in the same way that revisiting Identity Crisis (another well-made and well-told book founded on a gross plot device) is tough.

The art is fantastic, the dialogue is fantastic, and the ending (Grant Morrison's reading of it especially) is fantastic, but it's possible for something to be both good and bad, and The Killing Joke is both good and bad. I, personally, don't feel like this story benefits from being animated, and I don't feel like revisiting this story benefits comic culture in any meaningful way.

It's a shame she was poorly handled but theres some real hyperbole going on here, as for the PV the art style and the animation both looking sub par

Meh, I'm sick of these animated movies resorting to just rehashing the Batman stuff. Dark Knight Returns was good but it benefits primarily on how close it gets to the source material to the point that they needed two parts. This one will be probably be really good as well if it does the same level of detail. If anything this will probably be a great swan song for Hamil and Conroy reprising those roles. It would suck if their final duet was Arkham Knight, which was disappointing for reasons far beyond the voice performances. However I find that the majority of DC's animated stuff has become beloved specifically for how well they do alternate takes on established DC characters. It's cool that they can make feature length content based on really great stories but I'm more interested in animated movies with obscure characters a la Assault on Arkham or mainstays that deserve to get fleshed out a la Flashpoint Paradox. That's just me.

I used to really enjoy the DC animated movies, but I've gotten to be as bored with them as I have all of the live-action super hero stuff. There's a lot of retreaded themes (SHOULD BATMAN/SUPERMAN KILL TEH BADDIES) and they all involve a lot of quipy dialogue that seems right inline with a big budget blockbuster. I think part of what I liked about the animated movies was they were cartoons but with a slightly more mature tone to them - pretty blatant references to sex for example. Though there's now so many of them that I guess that aspect has lost its luster. All of the ones following Damian Wayne have been particularly meh. I honestly find it hard to suspend my disbelief towards a 12(?) year old that's kicking so much ass, even in a universe as stupid as the DC one. I can remember one fighting scene to where both his arms are broken... yet he was still able to fight?? It's like what's even the point? It felt as if there were no stakes involved.

What I've also come to learn thanks to the DC movies and the Arkham games is that I'm pretty damn done with Batman in general. He just doesn't have the same appeal anymore, and the constant ''muh parents!!'' bit of emotional resonance feels like a crutch that is just about ready to snap. Though to be fair I don't read the comics and I've been told they don't dwell on the parents stuff anymore like they do in every other piece of Batman media.

Also, yeah, the animation for this one looks really poor.

I have read a good number of the Batman graphic novels, but I have never really felt The Killing Jokes was all that good or interesting.

@atomicoldman: Exactly what I was going to say. It looks herky jerky and is really underwhelming. It can all be Homer handing in his test and sauntering away like in Homer Goes To College but this is rough.

I'm just glad they're breaking away from the current series that includes Justice League War and Son of Batman. I generally love the DC animated movies but that particular series has been a tonally disjointed mess and I have no idea who they're supposed to be for. Thats 6 whole movies that are complete crap. After that slog, I'm pretty hyped about this.

Come on people, the animation isn't terrible. Honestly, I come to these for the writing and quality voice acting and I usually forget about the art direction after a while. I even managed to overlook Superman's GIGANTIC chin in All Star. I just appreciate that traditionally animated non-anime movies still exist in some form. I mean if this looks low-budget then well yeah, thats because it is. Lets not forget that this is direct to video.

@monkeyking1969: Just curious, what are your favorite Batman novels? I love The Killing Joke, but I'm in the minority and think TDKR is over-rated. Its really good, but I think its given a little too much credit. I really enjoy some smaller arcs and whatnot, but my all-time favorite is The Long Halloween.

@mordukai: You didn't ask me, but I've been reading Batman religiously since 94-95 ( along with a majority of stuff before that).

I like ASHOSE, but Grant Morrison irks me sometimes. His stuff is sometimes all over the place.

New 52- Scott Snyder and Capullo did a VERY good job with Batman.Their final issue(51) came out yesterday. The first 12 issues(Court of Owls/City of Owls) is REALLY REALLY good. They had 2 separate arcs with Joker(Death of the Family & Endgame), The Zero Year stuff is okay. I liked the Superheavy arc with Gordon as Batman and Bloom is a fresh, new villain(finale on the arc was meh). The majority of all other 52 is passable.

@ozzdog12: Thanks for the input.

Over the years a lot of people in this community turned into Jaded Motherfuckers.

@jadegl: That's a great nuanced look at the issues with TKJ. It's a really tough one to talk about because it also gets into the issue of if you isolate the issues to how TKJ handled it or do you also consider how they handled events afterward? Because, at least personally, Barbara Gordon as Oracle was always far more interesting to me than Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. The idea of a legitimate handicapped superhero, and not one who could just kind of avoid dealing with the issues of her handicap through superpowers, was something really fresh and original at the time. It also led to Birds of Prey, one of my favorite DC comic series. And then later it led to Cassandra Cain, whose run on Batgirl was about my favorite comic series DC has put out in the 2000s.

Comics have a very, very murky history when it comes to these issues of course. DC has the Big Barda and Superman make a porno storyline, is responsible for the "women in refrigerators" trope, had the whole controversy two years ago over its handling of Batwoman, and is currently in hot water over claims of sexual harassment permeating its management. Marvel has had its own issues as well over the years (see: Avengers 200).

I'm also not sure if that was necessarily the issue here just because its likely some DC employees at the time had potentially sexist views. From listening to Moore talk about it, I get more of a feeling of regret in execution than a man who has troubling views (see: Frank Miller). I don't want to tell writers, "hey, you can't have your heroes suffer tragedy." I think it's legitimate to write a storyline about how fragile human beings can be. But as you said, I think TKJ in the lens of modern culture shows its age and shows a bit of where we culturally were in the 80s.

I'm interested to see how they handle it here. Timm has indicated a lot of the added material to the story has focussed on expanding Barbara Gordon's role in the story so it doesn't feel as glossed over as the comic did. I can only hope that's accurate, as this will be more of a self-contained movie, and thus won't have the benefit on expanding on events the way the comic did.

I was watching an interview with Jaz Coleman & Paul Ferguson where they said Brian Bolland wrote to Coleman requesting pictures of his nose from multiple angles for reference drawing Joker when he was working on the comic .

They also said they heard Heath Ledger watched a lot of footage of Coleman from when he was "fat and drunk" while preparing for Dark Knight.

I have no idea if these anecdotes are true, but they're interesting.

------------

I know they can't copy Bolland's style perfectly in animation or anything, but I think this story deserves better animation than they've given it here. And I thought All-Star Superman was translated much better into animation.

I'm excited to see this film, animation style aside. My worry with it is that the story won't hold up for me anymore, I loved The Dark Knight Returns as a comic but when I saw the animated version...hearing the dialogue spoken out loud made it seem just terrible when in the comic it worked for me.

I don't really know what I want from the DC animated films, I didn't like Justice League Doom because I think Tower of Babel is a great comic and they strayed too far from it. But I didn't like TDKR because it was too faithful and didn't do anything interesting.

Yeah this doesn't look good. At all.

The animation looks crummy and it's not using the original colours from the comic, so really what's the point of making it at that point? The best thing the comic has going for it is the trippy colouring, without it it's just kinda lame.

Also doesn't help that I really don't care for The Killing Joke that much. The art with the original colours is amazing, as is Joker's origin and the genera dynamic he has with Batman, but that's about it. I hate what it does to Barbara, which is of course the thing that everyone remembers the book for so they're totally gonna adapt it and urgh.

If there's one Alan Moore book that should be forgotten, it's this one.

This is my favorite song from them.

Edit: changed my mind.

Sooo anybody seen this yet? The part where it was actually The Killing Joke was pretty good. Don't really feel like it hit all the right notes in terms of the Joker/Batman dynamic, and it definitely didn't have the ambiguity of the comic's ending. As an overall package it felt pretty unfocused and unsatisfying.

I saw it and agree I like the bit that was The Killing Joke was good but the whole Batgirl lead in was bizarre and a bit awkward. The actions and jokes felt like they were for kids but then also people get shot in the head and people fuck. Very odd tone. Did any of that happen in any of the comics? I have read under 10 Batman comics but the Killing Joke is the one I like the most.

So, as someone who has not read The Killing Joke, should I watch this movie?

@hayt: @teddie: The added Batgirl subplot didn't need to be there in the first place. The whole "I kinda seeing someone." or whatever it was felt completely out of place and the hint of Batgirl basically getting raped by Joker felt unnecessary. As if the writers wanted to say "Remember how controversial the comic book was when it came out?! Just wait and see how we made even more controversial." At least once it starts it gets good even though they missed the mark on the ending.

Killing joke is pretty good

Killing Joke is my favorite Batman comic so I decided to see this in theaters last night and walked out disappointed. I get that the length of the original comic means they had to add content if they wanted to turn it into a full movie, but it's like a full 30 minutes before they've adapted a single page of the comic this movie is named after, and none of the added material has anything to do with the story. The movie literally works better if you don't watch the first third of it. I expect they decided to have The Adventures of Batgirl at the beginning because if there's any major criticism of The Killing Joke, it's the awful treatment of Barbara Gordon's character. This doesn't fix that at all.

The Killing Joke itself was an incredibly straight forward adaptation. Regardless of quality I didn't think the animation, voice acting, or music elevated the story at all. I would've been better off just reading the comic again, because the adaptation really didn't bring anything new to the table, and a lot of the iconic imagery was watered down for the sake of making it simpler to animate. They even fucked up the last shot, none of the implications of the original artwork were there. My friend (who has never read the comic before) was just confused by the abrupt ending. I had to explain to him why The Killing Joke is even considered good, which is maybe the worst case scenario for an adaptation.

just finished watching it.... and i never knew batman and barbara were ever a thing. i thought there was tension but bruce never let himself go past the edge let alone have sex with her. Is that in the comics anywhere?? I never read the killling joke comic but heard enough about it in regards to the joker and his "origins" but i dont see the big deal with this story line. the big bits were joker doing horrible things to barbara and then trying to corrupt commissioner gorgon but he didnt even succeed.

When bats tried to fix joker at the end i appreciate joker declining his offer but i thought we was going to back stab him or something right before the end. I also had a moment of "what if" when bruce started laughing with joker because i thought maybe he was hit with jokers maddening laughing syrum. ( that would be a hell of a turn at the end) i just find it hard to believe that after batmans dear friendcommissioner gordon and his daughter who batman was just intimate with, he decides to laugh it off with joker instead of breaking his arm in 18 different places. I mean he shot and paralyzed her and took pictures of her naked body and then showed them to her father. it just feels out of place.

Ultimately i get the whole mirror image and joker-batman dynamic being two sides of a coin but i feel other stories have done that better with the red hood arc and the dark knight returns. if DC keeps shoveling out kevin conroy and mark hamil i will soak it up like a brand new sponge.

bottom line: i think red hood and dark knight are the better go-to's for batman animated movies.