Batman Death In The Family DCAU Movie

[Autbot_Benz]

It will have both Interactive and non Interactive versions it looks like.

[Leo656]

Oh, Jesus. Let's see how they c*ck THIS one up. After seeing what they did to "Reign of the Supermen" and even "The Killing Joke", my faith in them to do this right is pretty goddamn low. Which sucks, because it's one of my all-time favorite Batman stories.

I can't help but crack up at the fact that they're "adapting" Jason's death story NOW... after they put out the animated adaptation of his RETURN ("Under the Red Hood") over 10 goddamn years ago!

And people knock their live-action division for choosing projects out of a hat or flinging sh*t at a wall. Their animated output is just as haphazard, they just play to a broader base. It's STILL a giant cluster-f*ck and at least half of the movies are just plain awful.

I'unno, we'll see. Video wouldn't play for me.

EDIT: Oh, wait, there it goes.

OOOOF, I'm out. Looks like they changed absolutely everything... AGAIN.

The entire subplot of Jason trying to find his real mother was critical to that story, because in order to give a sh*t about him dying, he had to be a character worth liking and feeling sorry for in the first place, and by that point, he hadn't been presented that way very much. So they did a great job in three issues of making you give a sh*t about this arrogant putz before blowing him to hell.

"But there's a crowbar and a warehouse explosion! It's exactly the same!" Jesus, I hate these movies.

"Interactive" idea seems kinda neat, though, although not sure how that works but whatever.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I'm down for this. Seems like it could be interesting, with the interactive stuff.

[ZariusTwo]

It's a clever bit of marketing...bring what DC offered to readers at the time (fate of Jason Todd) to a new generation used to interactivity...trouble is, they're just remaking the story of his return along with it and there's already a perfectly good movie that deals with that.

Give us an interactive Hush so I can get a happy ending for Bruce and Selina, and can retcon Jason as Clayface and not the Riddler

[Leo656]

Clayface is an idiot, though, he could never be a mastermind.

Animated "Hush" was pretty goddamn terrible, though, so if anyone ever wants to give that one a "mulligan" I wouldn't complain.

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

I'm down for this. Seems like it could be interesting, with the interactive stuff.

You are SUCH a Jason Todd Stan. That's the only reason you feel this way. WHY DON'T YOU JUST BLOW THE GUY, NANCY???

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Clayface is an idiot, though, he could never be a mastermind.

I know, in the comic he was just the muscle, Riddler was still the mastermind, but the movie actually made Riddler Hush.

[Leo656]

That entire f*cking movie should be stricken from the record for missing the point of the story entirely and completely ruining the characters.

Comic Book "Hush" - Catwoman: "I'm not gonna let you kill anyone, Bruce! That isn't who you are, that isn't what you're about! You stand for something better! You have to hold firm to your ideals!"

Animated "Hush" - Catwoman: "You need to just start killing all these f*ckers, you idiot."

That. Movie. Is. TERRIBLE.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Leo656

You are SUCH a Jason Todd Stan. That's the only reason you feel this way. WHY DON'T YOU JUST BLOW THE GUY, NANCY???

Can't deny it.

Besides, they can't incorporate the mom because the Under the Red Hood film already fvcked that up. At least they're trying to be consistent to one of the last good DC animated films they did.

That, and ever since Bandersnatch on Netflix, I've been hoping for some interesting new interactive film content.

[Leo656]

Looks like half of this is just re-doing that other movie, too, though, like Zar pointed out.

It's bad enough they "revived" the guy in this "animated universe" or whatever before they'd even killed him on-screen... before they'd even INTRODUCED him on-screen... but NOW they're gonna go back, tell the "Death" story, AND in the same movie do a re-do of a movie they already did?

[sdp]

How interactive is it? From the trailer it seems like there's only 3 endings the one with Robin dying likely being the one used for the non interactive ending. A death in the family isn't even a great story, the short version of the story worked for Under the red hood, which this trailer seemed to be using footage from, or is it just the same character designs? So is this meant to be a prequel to under the red hood?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by sdp

A death in the family isn't even a great story

That's like seven dollars in the "Bad Opinions" Jar.

[Shark_Blade]

Recycling movie scene?

[oldmanwinters]

Hah, this is starting to feel like a Dragon's Lair video game re-release!

[Coola Yagami]

It just feels so lazy. Then it's like... Jason either becomes The Red Hood or he becomes Red Robin? What?

Also you're right, this story had 2 things, Jason looking for his mother... and Joker becoming ambassador of another country, to which Batman now can't touch the Joker lest he risks causing an international incident, even though he has just killed Robin and our hero is seething with rage. To the point where even Superman has a cameo making sure Bats doesn't step out of line.

Heh, I still remember the part where Batman socked Superman in the face and Supes reminded him that if he didn't roll with that punch he would have broken his hand.

[AquaParade]

The interactive option is a novel idea, I like that.


Still, these adaptions should be right right up my alley, given the source material in the demographic they are going for, but they just aren?t. The obviously low budget & stuff animation do nothing for me.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

The interactive option is a novel idea, I like that.


Still, these adaptions should be right right up my alley, given the source material in the demographic they are going for, but they just aren?t. The obviously low budget & stuff animation do nothing for me.

The lazy re-use of animation too. There's no reason to re-use anything except maybe Robin's death scene. All that Red Hood/Red Robin stuff happened later (if they're replacing Tim's Robin with Red Robin, that's a whole other story, and if we refer to Red Hood that was years later). There's no reason to see any of the Black Mask stuff. It's super-lazy.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

It just feels so lazy. Then it's like... Jason either becomes The Red Hood or he becomes Red Robin? What?

Also you're right, this story had 2 things, Jason looking for his mother... and Joker becoming ambassador of another country, to which Batman now can't touch the Joker lest he risks causing an international incident, even though he has just killed Robin and our hero is seething with rage. To the point where even Superman has a cameo making sure Bats doesn't step out of line.

Heh, I still remember the part where Batman socked Superman in the face and Supes reminded him that if he didn't roll with that punch he would have broken his hand.

Yeah man. There was a TON going on in that story.

I hate these "adaptations" because they whittle these stories down to a singular event, remove all depth, nuance, and context, and give it the same title in a cheap attempt to sell something to people who are too lazy to f*cking read.

A crowbar and a warehouse explosion does not "A Death In The Family" make. Call it something else. Don't lean on a far-superior fictional work to try and get more attention for your junk. Not only are the stories in these things always trash even removed from their failure to properly "adapt" anything, they also bring down the reputation of the original stories by sharing the same name, which is an insult to the originals.

If they gave these things their own titles and flashed an "Inspired by..." card, I might be a little more forgiving. They'd still generally suck, but at least they wouldn't be blasphemous at the same time, they'd "just" be bad stories.

Like, "Justice League: Doom" wasn't terrible. That's probably one of the better ones. BUT, they also didn't call it "Tower of Babel", either, and that's good because it has about as much to do with that story as the two versions of "Hush" do with each other: Some things, but not a lot. It's easier to judge and accept something for what it is if it's not masquerading as something else just to get some easy attention.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

The last DC animated movie I saw was Gotham by Gaslight, but I think the last ones that I would consider a classic were The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 and 2. They were very much a faithful adaptation that only seemed to change small amounts.

Which makes sense. DKR is a classic story and changing anything drastically wouldn't really help in any way. But even then, The Killing Joke didn't really change much from the original story (which I don't think was THAT classic) and still managed to be very average in it's execution.

It's a weird business adapting stories.

[AquaParade]

I thought the DKR adaptions were pretty well done. A lot of the monologue and narration is missing, which is what Frank Miler is so good at, so that aspect is certainly missed, but the killer soundtrack brings something to the table that the book can’t replicate.

It looked pretty good too, visually. Maybe a step above some of the others.

Still, I am sort of glad these are out there. If I had discovered these relatively gritty DC animations, as a young teen, without even having read the comics, I’d probably be blown away.

[Leo656]

Dark Knight Returns wasn't perfect, but absolutely one of the all-time best they've done. And I don't even love the book, I think the book has good ideas but is heavily flawed. But as far as animated "adaptations" go, well... THAT'S how you do it, generally speaking.
--------------------

Killing Joke was an all-around misfire.

I know everyone cites the Batgirl stuff, and that IS bad, but that's not even the biggest problem. Or maybe it is, but the rest of the execution simply was not correct.

The art was far too flat and lacked detail, compared to the absolutely incredible art of the comic book. They really needed to go all-out for that particular release, and they did not. It looked too much like every other random release they did.

Perhaps most egregious of all, was Mark Hammil completely misreading the material. Which KILLS me, because he said this was the one Joker role he wanted to perform more than any other... and he did it wrong. Just totally, totally wrong. If you read the book, it's fairly obvious that some lines are meant to be "loud" and some are supposed to be "quiet". And he did it BACKWARDS in just about every case, shouting when he was supposed to be subtle and vice-versa. Sometimes he even sounded bored.

Look at the book, and look at Joker's face when he says "Why aren't you laughing?" He's NOT shouting, he's not even angry, he's genuinely confused and a little bit upset that Batman doesn't "get the joke" about life being meaningless. He WANTS him to understand... he really does believe that there is freedom in Madness, and he sees that Batman's entire life is nothing but a "pointless" struggle. He's trying to "set him free", yet Batman is fighting him on it, and he can't understand why. If anything, he should sound confused and pitiful when he says that line. It's all right there in the expression on the page. You can "hear" it, you can hear the way it's supposed to be delivered. It's all in the eyes. Sad eyes, not angry ones.

Instead, we get a generic, over-the-top shouted delivery of a line that's supposed to be poignant and understated. Did Mark even read the book? He SAYS he loves it, but I'm not so sure he understood it.

I'm willing to allow for the fact that maybe he just got bad direction, I don't know. I do know that his performance, done correctly, could have elevated that thing to another level. Instead, it was no different at all from his regular stuff. I actually think it was one of his lesser Joker performances. And that's a goddamn tragedy.