Its comics dude. At any given moment 99.999999999999% of all comics aren't considered canon to anything.shrekfan246 said:
Killing Joke Film Controversy SPOILERS
- Thread starter SirSullymore
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Sure?Silentpony said:
I was answering that person's question as to why Barbara wasn't paralyzed in the DCAU. The events of The Killing Joke, as far as we know, never happened in the DCAU.
The Batman/Barbara pairing surprises me, but there's nothing exceptionally wrong with it. There's an age difference to consider, and their relationship is usually that of a mentor and an apprentice, but ultimately - they're adults, they're not related, whatever. Who cares. They can smash genitals, I don't mind.
Lots of interpretations of Batgirl play her as essentially a Batman fangirl who improvises a costume to go fight crime, so that's not new.
I will say that adding a Batgirl/Batman relationship to the plot of The Killing Joke does make it more...well, they gotta add something to the plot. It's not a very long comic. Batman and Batgirl's relationship is the obvious place to start.
I think I would have preferred their relationship to be non-sexual, just because making it sexual kind of raises the spectre of the "bad guy did bad thing to good guy's girlfriend, now good guy is mad" cliche. Which is lazy writing; Batman can care plenty about Barbara Gordon without putting his penis inside her.
As for Batman's usual pairings...the guy practically has a harem. Selina Kyle, Zatanna, Wonder Woman, then all the "normal" girlfriends like Vicki Vale. I cannot think of a more commonly paired-up DC character than Bruce Wayne. Maybe Dick Grayson, but to be perfectly honest, he tends to just get sexually assaulted.
Lots of interpretations of Batgirl play her as essentially a Batman fangirl who improvises a costume to go fight crime, so that's not new.
I will say that adding a Batgirl/Batman relationship to the plot of The Killing Joke does make it more...well, they gotta add something to the plot. It's not a very long comic. Batman and Batgirl's relationship is the obvious place to start.
I think I would have preferred their relationship to be non-sexual, just because making it sexual kind of raises the spectre of the "bad guy did bad thing to good guy's girlfriend, now good guy is mad" cliche. Which is lazy writing; Batman can care plenty about Barbara Gordon without putting his penis inside her.
As for Batman's usual pairings...the guy practically has a harem. Selina Kyle, Zatanna, Wonder Woman, then all the "normal" girlfriends like Vicki Vale. I cannot think of a more commonly paired-up DC character than Bruce Wayne. Maybe Dick Grayson, but to be perfectly honest, he tends to just get sexually assaulted.
Captain Marvelous said:[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]comicbooksarenotcanoncomicbooksarenotcanoncomicbooksarenotcanoncomicbooksarenotcanon[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]
What the shit? Is that an actual comic book that exists? It looks like a goddamn parody of comics injecting real life issues into them to make them more srs biznz.
OT: I don't have a special connection to the Killing Joke. Read it a couple of times, and it's decent, and the end bit with Batman and The Joker on the rooftop is a nice moment between the two. But stretching its runtime with this? Talk about lack of creativity. Couldn't this have just been done with Batman and Barbara stopping some goons in the beginning, and something goes awry, prompting Batman to go to the Joker to have the conversation that sets the story in motion?
Would you look at that! In the previous topic, I called it like a fuggin' boss 
My only issue with this is after time to think, it makes all of The Killing Joke movie into a shaggy dog story for Batgirl. She acts on a crush, lets herself be vulnerable, and gets screwed over by both the man she thought she loved or at least had sex with in the heat of the moment and by The Joker, who wasn't even targeting her to begin with.
Then it adds a needless rape mechanic, for lack of a better word, to The Joker and Barbera Gordon scenes, when the original comic HINTS at it, but doesn't outright state it like the movie does. It all just comes out frankly kind of crass, as a huge DC fan myself.
The only solace of all of this is that before DC'a reboots took over late 2000's, Barbera Gordon becomes The Oracle, a complete badass hacker and martial artist, and in current 2010's comics, what the Joker does here doesn't even permanently paralyze her, it just disables her for a couple of months/years.
Is it any wonder that Batgirl was only able to be written well when it's a woman writing her?
My only issue with this is after time to think, it makes all of The Killing Joke movie into a shaggy dog story for Batgirl. She acts on a crush, lets herself be vulnerable, and gets screwed over by both the man she thought she loved or at least had sex with in the heat of the moment and by The Joker, who wasn't even targeting her to begin with.
Then it adds a needless rape mechanic, for lack of a better word, to The Joker and Barbera Gordon scenes, when the original comic HINTS at it, but doesn't outright state it like the movie does. It all just comes out frankly kind of crass, as a huge DC fan myself.
The only solace of all of this is that before DC'a reboots took over late 2000's, Barbera Gordon becomes The Oracle, a complete badass hacker and martial artist, and in current 2010's comics, what the Joker does here doesn't even permanently paralyze her, it just disables her for a couple of months/years.
Yeah part of the problem I have with Bruce Timm is that he seems to have a massive problem with wanting to make Batgirl a damsel or rape victim or have bad things happen to her. He does the same thing to Tim Drake in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, and it always came across to me as needlessly 90's edgy. I also never like The Killing Joke either- the only thing that's held up to me personally, and the only two good parts of it, are Batman confronting the "Joker" in the beginning and pleading to stop all of this, and The Joker explaining his multiple origins to the reader, all diverse (some of that is done extremely well in The Dark Knight). The Babs stripping and Jim Gordon watching his daughter be violated stuff? Not so much, it came across as needlessly excessive and I've seen A Serbian Film!bartholen said:Captain Marvelous said:[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]comicbooksarenotcanoncomicbooksarenotcanoncomicbooksarenotcanoncomicbooksarenotcanon[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]
What the shit? Is that an actual comic book that exists? It looks like a goddamn parody of comics injecting real life issues into them to make them more srs biznz.
OT: I don't have a special connection to the Killing Joke. Read it a couple of times, and it's decent, and the end bit with Batman and The Joker on the rooftop is a nice moment between the two. But stretching its runtime with this? Talk about lack of creativity. Couldn't this have just been done with Batman and Barbara stopping some goons in the beginning, and something goes awry, prompting Batman to go to the Joker to have the conversation that sets the story in motion?
Is it any wonder that Batgirl was only able to be written well when it's a woman writing her?
That's fine because that Barbara Gordon is established to be her own person with her own motivations and her own goals. This Barbara Gordon is already established in the source comic book as being an object to motivate the male characters rather than a participant in her own story, and the movie doubles down on that by saying she has such monumentally low self-esteem as to risk her life fighting supervillains in order to get Batdaddy to notice her and grace her with his sacred Batjizz. That's not just dropping the ball, that's setting the ball on fire and dropping it into a garbage pit.fezzthemonk said:
It is not real life, and it's not a choice Barbara Gordon makes. It's a choice the writers made to pad a movie by selling us the teasing thought of her inked-on nipples, and that choice is made at the expense of making her actually matter in the story she gets permanently crippled in.fezzthemonk said:
I am just gonna watch this movie for Joker, and Mark Hamill nailed the books dialoge perfectly (For those who already read the book)
Now I really want to see the flashback sequences to see how Mark talks as the man before he became the Joker.
Now I really want to see the flashback sequences to see how Mark talks as the man before he became the Joker.
Eh that's enough of the movie for me. The rest is cheesy melodrama and Batman indulging Joker's Shakespearean soliloquies.Samtemdo8 said:
That's one thing I enjoyed about the Arkham verse Batman. He wants to stop the bad guys as quickly as possible, not let them drone on and on.
The Killing Joke was written a long time ago before a lot of rewrites, was it not? I don't recall the comic in detail (or if I even read it), but was was the relationship like from when it was brand new?
I'm assuming it was around the time where Jason Todd (Robin) was killed by Joker in an explosion or something. I'm half sure I read some of that.
If it was an older writers original work from way-back-when this may not have been an out-of-character development for Batgirl or Batman to be apart of.
Sex-for-power was more of Catwoman's thing. I think that most people associate Batgirl as a faux-adopted daughter of Batman by having the same themed costumes. In a sense some people might see this as a sort of incest / molestation from Batman. The writer(s) may have had the alternate perspective of not seeing them as in any way relatable other than their alter egos and at least put Batgirl in the position of instigator.
As someone whose not entirely into comics and I don't have a hardcore following on the characters outside of the TV and movies, I can't really say that I have any problem with either of them being together. It also, to me, felt more like the narrative was focused on Batgirl. She developed complex emotions for a mentor, tries to reconcile those emotions by confessing them to a friend for perspective, and then goes for the troupe 'I'm hysterical with emotions until I kiss you and then we go at it'.
The thing is Batman is almost a psychopath himself. In the movie they call it being "near the abyss" so it's not like Batman was ever going to seduce Batgirl on his own. If anything were to have happened, Batgirl had to position herself as more powerful (if for a moment, or THE moment) before it could happen. I think when she later reminisces to her friend that she calls the sex "Fantastic" just seemed like the writers had to get a little jolly over describing how well Batman can give it. As if he wasn't already amazing at everything else, this also had to be spelled out. It felt a little forced. I think a smarmy grin would have sufficed like a "A girl never tells." kind of way but you know it was the best.
I'm assuming it was around the time where Jason Todd (Robin) was killed by Joker in an explosion or something. I'm half sure I read some of that.
If it was an older writers original work from way-back-when this may not have been an out-of-character development for Batgirl or Batman to be apart of.
Sex-for-power was more of Catwoman's thing. I think that most people associate Batgirl as a faux-adopted daughter of Batman by having the same themed costumes. In a sense some people might see this as a sort of incest / molestation from Batman. The writer(s) may have had the alternate perspective of not seeing them as in any way relatable other than their alter egos and at least put Batgirl in the position of instigator.
As someone whose not entirely into comics and I don't have a hardcore following on the characters outside of the TV and movies, I can't really say that I have any problem with either of them being together. It also, to me, felt more like the narrative was focused on Batgirl. She developed complex emotions for a mentor, tries to reconcile those emotions by confessing them to a friend for perspective, and then goes for the troupe 'I'm hysterical with emotions until I kiss you and then we go at it'.
The thing is Batman is almost a psychopath himself. In the movie they call it being "near the abyss" so it's not like Batman was ever going to seduce Batgirl on his own. If anything were to have happened, Batgirl had to position herself as more powerful (if for a moment, or THE moment) before it could happen. I think when she later reminisces to her friend that she calls the sex "Fantastic" just seemed like the writers had to get a little jolly over describing how well Batman can give it. As if he wasn't already amazing at everything else, this also had to be spelled out. It felt a little forced. I think a smarmy grin would have sufficed like a "A girl never tells." kind of way but you know it was the best.
It sucked then, and it sucks now. Bringing it back is asinine and just asking for trouble. I was looking forward to this movie, but now... now it seems like it is missing the ENTIRE point of what the Killing Joke was about in the first place. Like they needed a reason for Bruce to care about Barbra in a way that wasn't, you know, platonic in every single way. They had to make them some sort of lovers and pretty much degrade Barbra's character in the process. Unfortunate... Very unfortunate indeed.ecoho said:
After hearing about it, I thought it was stupid as a prologue and a change. It changes a lot of the dynamic of the people involved and somewhat diminishes the power of The Killing Joke.
I am thinking this was not to get to the ratings, but to give extra impact to what happens next. They probably thought there was no way to write a relationship between people of different genre without sex being involved... but it was unnecessary. It was not enough for the movie to show the Joker as an nonredeemable bastard, or to show the impact it had in one of the longest running characters in the series and her family (one that was kept around for the longest), but they thought they had to do it "more personal".
All it did was try to make it more personal for Batman, because they "mess with his woman", and that is incompetent writing.
I am thinking this was not to get to the ratings, but to give extra impact to what happens next. They probably thought there was no way to write a relationship between people of different genre without sex being involved... but it was unnecessary. It was not enough for the movie to show the Joker as an nonredeemable bastard, or to show the impact it had in one of the longest running characters in the series and her family (one that was kept around for the longest), but they thought they had to do it "more personal".
All it did was try to make it more personal for Batman, because they "mess with his woman", and that is incompetent writing.
It's awkward because you don't see it coming, though it doesn't show anything. Barb takes her shirt off and the camera pans up.CaitSeith said:
Okay it didn't come out of NOWHERE, but it did kind of come out of left felid considering that this is not in continuity with the animated universe and is based on a self contained story that didn't have any indication of it in the slightest.ecoho said:
I agree with Batman having more of a mentor/father role to his wards. Adding a romance between Bruce and Babs just feels off, partly because it wasn't there in the original graphic novel, and partly because both characters have much more/better established love interests in respectively Selina Kyle/Talia Al Ghul and Dick Grayson.Johnny Novgorod said:
So, just saw the movie last night, and ya'll mothers are freaking out over nothing.
I was kinda thrown off with the inclusion of the sexual relationship between Bruce and Barbara, because like many, I always saw it more of a mentor/mentee relationship, but in the movie she is a grown, adult woman and as a partner-in-crime(fighting) to Batman. She doesn't come across as "pining" for Batman, nor is it ever insinuated that the only reason she is fighting crime is to get Batman's attention. Anyone saying that is pulling shit out of their ass to stir up controversy, or maybe projecting In fact, when her co-worker is talking to her about her frustration with her "yoga instructor" and recommends that she do yoga somewhere else, she's frustrated that she can't. She's alluding to fighting crime elsewhere, not chasing Batman. She would stop being Batman's partner, but can't because she can't just leave Gotham.
The actual scene itself isn't the best done, but not the worst. Its the cliche mix of violence+sex as the two of them get frustrated with each other, cut lose fighting and end up fucking. Nothing is really seen as it cuts away pretty quick.
Afterwards, Batman is shown as the one who is acting weird over it. Barbara is frustrated that he is avoiding her, and calls him up trying to get him to relax saying, "It was just sex, it doesn't have to mean anything." so if anything, she seems more emotionally stable/stronger than him in that aspect. Which, while Batman is known to have flings as Bruce Wayne to keep up playboy'ish appearances, he isn't known for being very emotionally stable with relationships.
I found it mostly to be a bit of padding to flesh out the runtime of the story, as well as build up the character of Barbara/Batgirl for the audience to make the impact of the Joker's later actions more impactful. This is why:
Joker doesn't know who she really is. He only knows her as Commisioner Gordon's daughter.
Joker doesn't know she is romantically linked to the Batman.
Joker's ambush pretty much comes out of nowhere (unless you have previously read the book, of course). The scene goes from casual, Daddy-Daughter moment to "oh shit!" fast.
So, while Barbara is an important character to the audience, she is meaningless to the Joker. She's just a way to "get to" Gordon, mentally and emotionally, to the Joker. The fact that he shoots her so nonchalantly is meant to shock the audience. Which, even though I knew the story well, when she was opening the door and you see the Joker's grin, I was still cringing a bit internally, knowing what was coming.
The first bit of story actually builds up the character so she is an active participant in the story, and more meaningful to the audience, instead of just being a bystander who gets shot as part of the Joker's scheme.
It works, for the most part.
I was kinda thrown off with the inclusion of the sexual relationship between Bruce and Barbara, because like many, I always saw it more of a mentor/mentee relationship, but in the movie she is a grown, adult woman and as a partner-in-crime(fighting) to Batman. She doesn't come across as "pining" for Batman, nor is it ever insinuated that the only reason she is fighting crime is to get Batman's attention. Anyone saying that is pulling shit out of their ass to stir up controversy, or maybe projecting
In fact, when her co-worker is talking to her about her frustration with her "yoga instructor" and recommends that she do yoga somewhere else, she's frustrated that she can't. She's alluding to fighting crime elsewhere, not chasing Batman. She would stop being Batman's partner, but can't because she can't just leave Gotham. The actual scene itself isn't the best done, but not the worst. Its the cliche mix of violence+sex as the two of them get frustrated with each other, cut lose fighting and end up fucking. Nothing is really seen as it cuts away pretty quick.
Afterwards, Batman is shown as the one who is acting weird over it. Barbara is frustrated that he is avoiding her, and calls him up trying to get him to relax saying, "It was just sex, it doesn't have to mean anything." so if anything, she seems more emotionally stable/stronger than him in that aspect. Which, while Batman is known to have flings as Bruce Wayne to keep up playboy'ish appearances, he isn't known for being very emotionally stable with relationships.
I found it mostly to be a bit of padding to flesh out the runtime of the story, as well as build up the character of Barbara/Batgirl for the audience to make the impact of the Joker's later actions more impactful. This is why:
Joker doesn't know who she really is. He only knows her as Commisioner Gordon's daughter.
Joker doesn't know she is romantically linked to the Batman.
Joker's ambush pretty much comes out of nowhere (unless you have previously read the book, of course). The scene goes from casual, Daddy-Daughter moment to "oh shit!" fast.
So, while Barbara is an important character to the audience, she is meaningless to the Joker. She's just a way to "get to" Gordon, mentally and emotionally, to the Joker. The fact that he shoots her so nonchalantly is meant to shock the audience. Which, even though I knew the story well, when she was opening the door and you see the Joker's grin, I was still cringing a bit internally, knowing what was coming.
The first bit of story actually builds up the character so she is an active participant in the story, and more meaningful to the audience, instead of just being a bystander who gets shot as part of the Joker's scheme.
It works, for the most part.
Except they could of done all of that without the nonsensical inclusion of anything romantic happening between Bruce and Barbara. They made it so completely lazy and stereotypical that it is completely meaningless. There are so many different ways they could have done this without the lame trope-filled plot device they went with.kris40k said: