Really? Maybe it's just me but I always interpreted it as a story about Gordon not compromising his principles even after seeing his daughter shot and raped thereby negating the Joker's "All it takes is one bad day to drive a normal man crazy".

I have a habit of unintentionally going into spoilers.

dont ask me
im just quoting what moore says about his own story
like i said earlier in this thread he wrote it so he sees it differently

It's weird; during action scenes the animation is very smooth and fluid. But the talking scenes seem like they lose all their animation budget.

I never though I'd say this, but knowing about the "improvements" to the Killing Joke, I'm actually looking forward more to theJustice League Dark movie. I'm nota big fan of that generic animation style DC has going that they're using for this, but even so it looksl ike it has a cool horror vibe and actually does remind me of something that Del Toro might have done with the team in live action, if he ever actually made the movie instead of just talking about it. Perhaps if the animated movie does well it might help get the live action version made.

From what I've gathered, The Killing Joke did the exact same mistake as Batman v. Superman (although that movie is literally a collection of mistakes): Trying to jam together two stories that are so radically different that they don't fit.

Bottom line: Skip the first 30 minutes. When the movie actually shows The Killing Joke, it's actually really good.

Just saw it. My verdict it was an average movie I have the comic but haven't read it yet.

I forgot to mention that this is also Hamil's last thing with joker. He wants to move on from the character. However, even if he still wanted to do the voice he couldn't. He said he will be physically unable to do it. You can kind of hear it in the film. Hamil's voice does break occasionally. It might be hard to notice but it's there.

I noticed it too. Says a lot about his health that we can't do a voice for film. Hope he gets better.

The second short was pretty cool. Shame the first one was present too.

I wonder if DC prepares a Birds of Prey animation, too. After all they've introduced Oracle in this one (and i loved Barbara Gordon as Oracle, just as much as i hated her being Batgirl - my favorite Batgirl was Cassandra Cain).

Overall, Killing Joke was more decent that i've expected, but seriously what the hell was that animation?!

It's about the idea that anyone could go crazy, not because The Joker went crazy or because it can go as quickly as a bad day, but because that's how reality is. I don't think it's meant to be read literally. I prefer the statement he says in the Dark Knight about madness is like gravity, it only needs a little push. Find the right leverage and you could cause anyone to go mad. All it proves is that Gordon prioritizes his principles before the safety of his daughter.

Looking forward to watch it.

So, I've just watched it.

What a waste, what a waste.

It could have been great. Could have been one of their very best. But no, they fucked it up. Hard. Like I assume everyone knows by now, the movie is actually two shorts- one about Batgirl, and the other being the actuall Killing Joke. And the first one is just terrible. It's unbeliveably bad. I can't belive Brian Azzarello wrote this. It's not even about the infamous sex scene (or rather implied sex scene). The whole thing is just so badly written. It's like some teen drama soap opera. It's like some 13 year old's fanfic. It's so bad. Barbara even has a sterotypical (very) gay friend to talk with about her "relationship issues", meaning how badly she wants to fuck Batman. It's almost Twilight level bad. The dialogue, the story... ugh. And it has nothing to do with the Killing Joke. Maybe Joker failed to drive Gordon insane, but he must have succeeded with Azzarello and Bruce Timm.

What also annoys me is that almost everyone online seems to try and disect that part with some "sexism" angle, while all it is is bad writing. It's bad writing all around, for Batman, and Batgirl, and everyone. It's not mistreating the female character, it's mistreating the audience, and the Killing Joke.

The actuall KJ adaptation part is pretty good. It never looks as good as the comic, it's missing the details and it never quite captures that mood, but Conroy and Hamill make up for that (mostly). The "funhouse ride" scene when Joker is singing and showing Gordon the pictures of Barbara might actually work even better here than in the comic, sound and motion actually serve it better than the detailed stillframes from the comic (which work better for most of the story).

The look of the movie is really odd. In the first part everything looks like it's an update of Timm's Justice League Cartoon, except for Bolland version of Batman, who sticks out like a sore thumb. In the KJ part it's the reverse- everything looks like the comic (streamlined and simpler of course), so the cartoonish Barbara sticks out like a sore thumb. All of it just doesn't work together at all, on any level. And at the end, after the KJ story ends with the famous joke and fade to black... they fuck it up again by cutting to cartoonish Barbara on a wheelchair, becoming Oracle. Which ruins the perfect ending from the comic, ruins the mood, and serves no purpose since it's a standalone movie, and we'll never see this Barbara/Oracle again.

All in all, while the KJ segment is too good to call the whole movie unwatchable, it is a trainwreck, poorly stiched together for no real reason. Conroy's Batman and Hamil's Joker were already served better by Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker. There's quite a few comics from DC that I'd like to see adapted, and I know after Year one and Under the Hood that they can do way better. So here's to hoping that one day we'll get Longbow Hunters or Red Son, but done right, without any shitty fanfic additions.

I watched it earlier this week at the special event showing at a local theater.

There's an episode of The New Batman Adventures called "Old Wounds" that shows Robin's falling out with Batman (after which Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing). The first part of The Killing Joke is more-or-less "Old Wounds" for Batgirl. It's decent. Not the travesty that some critics are claiming.

Bruce Timm seems to like the idea of some sort of ultimately short-lived romantic relationship between Batgirl and Batman; he experimented with the idea in Mystery of the Batwoman (scene) and Batman Beyond (scene). Yeah, it's a different continuity, but that aspect of The Killing Joke should not have been especially shocking to fans.

What surprised me is how quickly their relationship ends after their rooftop roll. That, and the events of TKJ taking place a mere week after she quits being Batgirl. Both seemed odd.

Why is this "Batgirl Ends" story merged with TKJ? Probably because the source material is short. I think it should have been presented as a double-feature of short films (Batgirl Ends + TKJ) or a three-part anthology (Batgirl Ends + TKJ + Oracle Begins) instead of a feature-length extension of TKJ.

Also, the portion of the movie that adapts TKJ just lacked... something. It comes off a bit flat for some reason. Maybe because it's presented as the second half of a whole but doesn't mesh well with the first half. Might be interesting to watch each half in separate sittings to see if they feel differently when viewed as two standalone shorts.

TL;DR - It's not great, but it's not terrible. The sex scene is being blown out of proportion.

Btw, if you haven't (what's wrong with you?!), then go watch:

Batman: The Animated Series | Batman: Mask of the Phantasm | Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero
The New Batman Adventures | Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
Batman Beyond | Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

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