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Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
246 Plays1 year ago
When you ask Batman fans what their favorite animated Batman movie is, Under the Red Hood is consistently one of the top choices—and with good reason. Fellow podcaster and Batman fan Colton Petrey joins the show to talk about why.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
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PARAGONS OF EARTH is a comic book project I’m developing with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns. You can support the project by visiting crowdfundr.com/paragonscomic.
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Transcript
Introduction and New Comic Launch
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey guys, before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you a little bit about Paragons of Earth, the exciting new superhero comic I'm working on with Thomas DJ and Eric Johns. For this comic, we've unearthed a number of obscure and forgotten Golden Age superheroes, plucked them from the depths of the public domain, and completely redesigned and reinvented them for the modern day. It's an exciting cast of characters, and we're throwing them up against the threat of a Lovecraftian apocalypse.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's got action, it's got drama, it's got alternate dimensions and alien worlds, and it's even got a giant shark and Hawaiian shirt. What else could you want? But in order to make this comic a reality, we need your help. The comic is crowdfunding now, and you can help support it by going to crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic.
00:00:42
Speaker
That's Crowdfunder Without the E dot com slash Paragons Comic. You'll be able to find that link in the show notes, so please double check if you didn't quite get it. Please help make this comic a reality. We are counting on
Meet the Guest: Colton Petrie
00:00:54
Speaker
your support. And now, on with the show.
00:01:11
Speaker
ignoring what he's done in the past, blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled. You know, I thought, I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he'd beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would have done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil death-worshipping garbage and set him off to hell.
00:01:41
Speaker
You don't understand. I don't think you've ever understood. What? What, your moral code just won't allow for that? It's too hard to cross that line. No! God almighty! No! It'd be too damned easy. All I've ever wanted to do is kill him. A day doesn't go by when I don't think about subjecting him to every horrendous torture he's dealt out to others. And then...
00:02:07
Speaker
And him. Aww. So you do think about me. But if I do that, if I allow myself to go down into that place, I'll never come back. Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because... Because he took me away from you.
00:02:36
Speaker
I can't. I'm sorry.
Creating 'Just Dumb Enough': A Podcast Journey
00:02:42
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host Perry Constantine. And today I'm welcoming a new guest and that's Colton Petrie. Colton, how you doing today? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Well, thanks for coming on. I was I was really glad that you sent me an email and that you wanted to talk about this movie Under the Red Hood. So we're gonna get into that eventually. But before we get to that, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, I am Colton Petrie. As you said, I run a podcast called Just Dumb Enough. And that is all, you know, dispelling misconceptions with experts about lifestyles, hobbies and careers and concepts in general. And it's just a fun time to never really know what the next episode is going to be. Very cool. How did you get started with that as the focus of your show? You know, I was working a job where I was listening to like 12 hours of podcast a day.
00:03:35
Speaker
which is a ton.
00:03:37
Speaker
but I found that I loved the host but hated hearing the same topic over and over. And so I'm like, oh, I need to break free from only psychology shows or only news shows or only whatever it was. And so I got into the weirder stuff and I was like, I'd really love to learn about something different every episode, like wildly different, but with the same people. And so I just, after three years of not hearing it, I was like, all right, I guess I'll start the show then.
00:04:06
Speaker
Okay, cool. How long have you been doing it? I just passed my two-year mark, so a little bit. Good, good. Congratulations. Was that a pandemic era show when you started up? Yeah, it was just about the last third of 2021, so I was like, what better time than to pick it up now? Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, we've been talking on a previous episode about a lot of people starting a podcast during that time, and a lot of them fizzling out after COVID ended, but it's good that some of them are sticking around.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's always like the statistic is very short on how many people stick around in podcasting. It's like ten episodes. Yeah, if you make it to ten episodes, yeah. Yeah, we are veterans at this point. So yeah, it's weird. But, you know, it gave us the time for a lot of people to experiment and see if it was for them.
00:05:01
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I mean, I definitely had that too. I've had podcasts in the past that made it to 10 episodes or like just a little bit past and they kind of fizzled out. So this one's going strong though. This is the 174th episode we're recording right now, I think. So we're very nice. Nice clip going.
Colton's Superhero Origin Story
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You were just ahead of me. I think I just did 166.
00:05:24
Speaker
Okay, cool, very nice. Yeah, we started a little bit before you, but we originally started off as biweekly. And then during the pandemic, that's when we moved to a weekly format. Yeah, I hit a period of time where I was the featured education show on Podbean. And so I was like, well, I need to take advantage of this momentum. And I went semi-weekly. So I was doing two a week, and it is a rough schedule.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the reasons why we get these recorded so far in advance now because I just like, we're recording this now in beginning November. This hasn't been coming out until December. So I go through phases when I know I'm gonna have downtime to just, you know, schedule a bunch of guests, try and get as much content packed away as possible. Whereas before with my old co-host, before he passed, we were doing it week by week and it was tough. It was tough to always meet that schedule sometimes.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, you have definitely made the very wise choice. Yeah. Anyway, you know, this is a topic focused show, right? We talk about superhero movies. So what is your history with superheroes? So I think just because of the nature of like how I grew up, right? I had very busy parents. So I was unintentionally isolated from superhero culture at large for like
00:06:43
Speaker
man, I don't know, until I was probably 10. So, you know, at like five, I was just kind of getting into whatever movies were around the house, you know, like, oh, this one showed up. So it must be a movie I can watch because I've got no supervision. And so at age five, my two favorite movies are like Disney's Hercules and Starship Troopers, which are wide gaps and also probably very concerning for my family.
00:07:10
Speaker
I don't know, with the anti-fascist message of Starship Troopers, it might be good to start you off early on that. Yeah, they were just like, hey, that's a super hard R movie. Are we okay with the five-year-old watching this? And they're like, look, it's his favorite movie. He's already seen it 10 times. I can't take it away now.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, kids of that generation, like the late the 80s, 90s generation, we did not, we were not so big at parental supervision in those days. I remember when I used to spend summers in Florida with my grandparents, and there was a free trolley that would go to the library. And so we'd go, my sister and I, we take the free trolley, we go to the library, we go and we check out VHS tapes. And
00:07:53
Speaker
Just like, you know, no supervision. My grandparents didn't care what we were watching. So we just go and like, I think I saw Robocop that way. I saw Alien 3 that way. Species was one I rented, one way too young.
00:08:06
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. Mine was like, once they figured out I was watching that, they're like, all right, well, let's just throw sci-fi movies at them and see what sticks. And that like, you know, is hit or miss because they're also like, oh, anything animated. And so I ended up like loving movies where it's John Carpenter's The Thing, which is a nightmare show for a kid to watch. And also like, oh, well, it's animated. It must be fine. So they pitch like Princess Mononoke, which is also another like our movie.
00:08:38
Speaker
I mean, that's not as bad as some of the anime you could have watched at that
Diving Into Comics and Lesser-Known Heroes
00:08:41
Speaker
age. I dodged some bullets, but they were just like, there was no filter. They were just throwing things at me and see what happened. And then eventually, you know, like Spider-Man came out and that was my intro to the superhero world.
00:08:56
Speaker
And I loved it. I'm like, oh my God, everything about this is fantastic. Like the plot, the structure, the way everything works, like this is incredible. I love it. And now I've spent, you know, the next two decades after that, just like buried in superhero culture.
00:09:13
Speaker
So are you more of a, obviously the movies was kind of your gateway into it. Are you still more focused on like the mass media side of things, like the movies, the TV shows, or have you also branched into the comics as well?
00:09:27
Speaker
Oh, I got very deep into the comic game, because at one point, you just run out of content. And so I'm like, well, I've seen all the movies that are out, especially early 2000s. There wasn't a lot. I'm like, all right, I've burned through all of them. Now I guess I have to start reading. And I would get into them. And I've always loved, probably, I guess, a little more off the beaten path. I'm not a Superman fan. I don't particularly like Batman in general.
00:09:51
Speaker
but I like some of the ancillary characters, side characters, but I'm like, oh, Red Hood, amazing. Green Arrow, amazing. I tend to go off a little weird. No, I get that. I've definitely gone through periods of that myself, too. And yeah, I get you completely on the content dirt that we had back in those days, because I came in in the early 90s with Batman the Animated Series and the X-Men cartoon.
00:10:20
Speaker
You know, once we got to the, you know, Batman was, you know, every day that first season, but, you know, X-Men was only week to week. And then when you got to the end of the season, it's like, OK, it's summer. Now what am I going to do? Because we didn't have DVDs back then either. Yeah. And I guess that's the weird, like, pickup in trying to go backwards into content, you know, in the 2000s, right, where I got into it. I'm like,
Superhero Culture's Global Influence
00:10:43
Speaker
OK, I want to watch the old stuff. Well, the easiest stuff to get your hands on was like, what's currently running?
00:10:49
Speaker
And so I got into Batman Beyond before I got into Batman, the animated series. So that like now that's my favorite Batman is Terry McGinnis. And that's like also a weird choice for most people. No, it is. But yeah, I totally get that. It's like for me, my
00:11:07
Speaker
You know, for an entire generation of people now, Miles Morales is their Spider-Man. He's the one that they saw in the first movie. They saw into the Spider-Verse. That's the one they read in the comics. So for a lot of people, he's their first Spider-Man. I mean, for me, my Green Lantern is always gonna be Kyle Rainier, not Hal Jordan. And so yeah, I think that's a really cool thing about a lot of this content now is,
00:11:31
Speaker
especially now because I've spent a lot of time in the fan communities and like the fan fiction scene and when I started off in the early 2000s
00:11:39
Speaker
you know, people were writing about characters that they grew up reading. So they were writing about the X-Men or Spider-Man or the Avengers. And then as I got older in that scene and I saw new people coming in, like they were starting to want to write about characters like Ms. Marvel or Miles Morales. They weren't interested in writing about the old characters. So yeah, it's really interesting to see how the tastes change and evolve and what characters people gravitate to or what versions of characters they gravitate to over time.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, well, even as like the culture has spread out, like superhero culture has become very large in Japan. And so then you get like the rise of my hero as a whole superhero genre of anime. You're like, this is an enormous thing that just cropped up. And you listen to those authors and they're like, oh, it's entirely inspired by American comics.
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you could totally see that influence too. I mean, you know, and a lot of the tokusatsu stuff in general came from the fact that Toei entered the deal with Marvel and they started doing Spider-Man show. And basically the deal was you could do anything you want with the character. You don't have to stick to the comics. So they, all they kept was the name and the costume and they changed everything else. And that really kind of like kick started the whole tokusatsu thing. A lot of the tropes we would later get
00:12:56
Speaker
in things like Power Rangers started off because of Spider, they're doing a Japanese Spider-Man. Yeah, certainly. And it's like, it's wonderful. I mean, seeing it expand, I have never been happier with the content. Oh yeah, same here.
Batman: Under the Red Hood - Film Discussion
00:13:10
Speaker
Absolutely. So that's a good transition into the next topic. And that is what kind of stuff are you interested in lately? Doesn't necessarily have to be superhero movie related or, but what's kind of grabbing your attention these days?
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've gotten really into, and it's still in the superhero genre, it just happens to be right now, which is Harley Quinn doing that show. My Adventures with Superman came out, which is a very interesting anime take on Superman in the early years. The Spider-Man 2 game just dropped, which has been consuming some of my attention. So I have oddly been wrapped up in superhero stuff just at the right time for this interview. Otherwise, I'm all over the place.
00:13:54
Speaker
I am too. Yeah, but man, my adventures with Superman is that was a show that just blew me away at how good it was. And, and also, you know, Superman and Lois to another, you know, Superman TV show, it's just been and the stuff they're doing. It's a good time if you're a Superman fan, basically these days. But for my thing, I've
00:14:17
Speaker
I've been actually very busy working on my own comic books, so I haven't had a lot of time to consume as much content, but when I do have a chance to, I have been watching Loki. At the time of this recording, I just watched episode four, so I'm one episode behind, well, I think, did episode five? Episode five came out this week, so I'm one episode behind right now. But yeah, that's another show that has been really entertaining to watch.
00:14:45
Speaker
And that's basically where I am. It's just not having a lot of time. So it's just been consuming stuff either for this show or working on other stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And I haven't watched any of season two Loki yet, but that's because I know myself and I'm going to burn through that show just like I did with season one. So I'm like, I'm gonna go ahead and wait. I'm gonna get rid of all this other stuff I got to finish up and then I'll just burn through Loki.
00:15:11
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. But anyway, like we mentioned earlier on today, we're going to be talking about an animated film Batman under the Red Hood. This is one of those this is in kind of a period of time when DC's animated output was mostly focused on doing adaptations of
00:15:29
Speaker
of different comic book stories. And they're still doing that to a small extent, but they were a lot more focused on that as kind of like their strategy, whereas now they're a little bit more focused on doing kind of like universe type things. And this was interesting because usually they don't make movies about stuff in the comics that's so soon after the release, like this came out
00:15:56
Speaker
you know, before arguably more seminal or more well-known stories like Long Halloween or Hush or anything like that. So it was an interesting choice to do this one. And it's got a pretty good cast, right? We got Bruce Greenwood as Batman, Jensen Ackles as Red Hood, John DiMaggio was the Joker, Neil Patrick Harris as Nightwing,
00:16:19
Speaker
and Jason Isaacs as Rachael Gould and Wade Williams as the Black Mask and Jim Pittock as Alfred Pennyworth. And this is one of those animated movies that if you ask most Batman fans what their favorite Batman animated movie is, I think you'll usually get a few answers.
00:16:44
Speaker
Obviously, Master of the Phantasm I think would definitely be up there, but you also get people say Dark Knight Returns, and Under the Red Hood is another one that is frequently mentioned as like one of the favorites, same with like year one. So this has gotten very, very well received. This has been very well received over the years. So what's kind of your history with this movie and and the comic it's based on for that matter? Yeah, I mean,
00:17:09
Speaker
So again, like a lot of the stuff, the early death of Jason Todd and the whole death in the family arc, right? Like was before my time, just, you know, with them doing the call in votes and like, will he die? Will he survive? One Dude Cheats unintentionally makes one of the best bat family members like,
00:17:28
Speaker
a whole wild series of stuff that happens. And I was shown this movie just on a whim by a friend. I had no idea it was coming around. It's like, it's a direct to video movie. So they're like, it's not getting any screen time, but it's out there. And so my buddy was like, Hey, I picked up this brand new movie. Let's watch it. And it was like rapidly. This is my favorite character of all time. Like I love Red Hood the way Jason Todd like plays out. It's fantastic.
00:17:58
Speaker
I had no idea who Johnson Ackles was at the time and he did just an amazing job. And I think that is in part because he is also like a huge fan of the character pre the movie. And so he's like, I have got to have this role. I would love to see it in live action. This is so great. You know, and that I think like you said, it's in people's top three pretty regularly.
00:18:22
Speaker
And that shows up when I was looking, you know, rewatching the movie because this was a good excuse to rewatch the movie. And I was looking at online reviews and I didn't know it has a hundred percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, wow. I was like, that's actually extraordinarily unusual, especially for like an animated Batman movie that never went to cinema. Right. And, you know, I don't I don't know that it's perfect, but it's really good.
00:18:49
Speaker
It is, yeah, it's very, very good. In fact, I had, did you ever read the, I assume by now that you've read the comic it was based on, right? Oh yeah, I've went back and binged everything now, but I had no idea anything about Red Hood or Jason Todd as Robin.
Jason Todd's Character Evolution
00:19:05
Speaker
Like, again, Batman wasn't really my thing until this movie. And then I was like, oh, I'm gonna figure out everything about this.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Jason Todd as a character has had an interesting evolution because, you know, I'm sure you probably know this history now that you're a fan of the character, but for anyone who doesn't know, like, you know, what happened was back in the eighties, they had, you know, Dick Grayson had, he was still Robin, but he had kind of like left the Batman books. He was leading the Teen Titans. And, you know, Batman writers are kind of like, well, you know, we want to have a Robin character. So they introduced Jason Todd. And at first,
00:19:43
Speaker
he had the exact same origin story as Dick Grayson. He was also a circus kid who watched his parents, you know, die. And then he ends up hooking up with Batman. Although he had red hair initially. So that was like the big difference from him from them. And then after
00:20:01
Speaker
crisis on Infinite Earths when they were kind of like retooling stuff in the DC universe, they had decided to differentiate him a lot more from Dick. So they had gotten rid of the circus origin background. Now he was a kid from Crime Alley whose mother was gone, whose father was mixed up with criminal elements.
00:20:26
Speaker
And he ends up, you know, he ends up meeting Batman because he's trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile. And Batman and Batman sees something in him. He sees this spark and he decides to take him under his wing and train him and
00:20:41
Speaker
And he wasn't very popular as Robin, right? He was very different from Dick Grayson, whereas Dick Grayson, when he was Robin, was much more, you know, happy-go-lucky, much more conciliatory to Batman. Jason was, you know, much more rebellious, much more antagonistic, and they'd gotten to the point where they were wondering about what to do with Jason Todd, and they decided, well, let's have the readers decide if they want him to
00:21:07
Speaker
To live or die and so they had this there's this number you could call it was like a one nine hundred number or something like that if you wanted him to live he called one number if you wanted to die you called the other number. And now I think they're actually gonna be doing an animated movie or something where which shows like the. The version where he he survived.
00:21:28
Speaker
And when I was a kid, my first introduction to Jason was actually through just a random comic I picked up at an antique store. And it was a Batman and Robin comic, and they were fighting Two-Face. And I remember reading that comic, and he's calling Robin Jason. I'm like, Jason? Who the hell is Jason? Because this is before internet, so I had no idea what was going on. And it wasn't until much later that I learned the backstory of the character.
00:21:57
Speaker
and then about his death and everything like that. And he had basically kind of become one of these untouchable characters in comics where you're like, you're not, there's been several characters that you are not supposed to resurrect in comics. You were not supposed to bring back Uncle Ben. You were not supposed to bring back Jason Todd. You were not supposed to bring back Bucky. You were not supposed to bring back Jor-El. And sure enough, all those characters, except for Uncle Ben, have come back now.
00:22:26
Speaker
And when they had first started teasing the idea of bringing back Jason Todd in the Jeff Loeb and Jim Lee Hush storyline, where at one point in the story, there's this reveal that the villain Hush is actually Jason Todd. And it turned out to be a Red Harry. It wasn't actually Jason Todd. It was just Clayface masquerading as him.
00:22:49
Speaker
But then there was such a, I think there was such a positive reaction to that that they decided, well, let's do it for real. And so they had brought him back and there were different stories about how he came back, right? At some point he was, at first it was because of the stuff with the infinite crisis storyline going on and Superboy Prime punching the walls of reality.
00:23:11
Speaker
comics folks. That's all I can say about that. But then what they kind of settled on, and I'm not sure which one is considered like the canon explanation, but is kind of what they used in this story where Rachelle Gould had, you know, resurrected Jason Todd using the Lazarus Pit, which is such a much cleaner version of the story. And I thought that
00:23:34
Speaker
And at first, I was pretty much against the idea of bringing him back. I was also against the idea of bringing back Bucky too, for that matter. But it's proof that if the story is good enough, it can get past those initial reservations because now I think, looking back on it now, I'm just like, oh no, this was actually a good move. They've actually improved a lot on the character by bringing him back. Same thing with Bucky and the Winter Soldier story.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, certainly. I mean, and there is some fantastic comics. If people, you know, watch this movie and you're like, wow, I'd love to know what happened in between this that made, you know, Jason Todd the Red Hood he is. Recent comic runs like Red Hood Outlaws has expanded into some of that where they're like, oh, here was the years between resurrection and showing back up in Gotham. And here's the years after all of that, too.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah. So they've done a fantastic job fleshing out that character, like for sure. Yeah. And I think one of the strengths of this movie too is that they got the same writer who wrote the comic book story to write the screenplay of it. Judd Winnick did both under the Red Hood storyline in the comics, and he also wrote this adaptation. So let's just dive into it. What were some things that really kind of jump out at you with this movie? I think a lot of this movie is
00:24:56
Speaker
Like, you have to justify the side you pick, right? Because you start
Ethical Debates in Batman's World
00:25:00
Speaker
out, and yes, admittedly, like Red Hood shows up in his first scene of the movie, and he has just admitted to killing every lieutenant of every drug dealer in the city in two hours. And you're like, and decapitating them. And you're like, okay, so he's absolutely psychotic.
00:25:18
Speaker
But then they kind of introduce him as like the foil to Batman as like, what if he's just a little villainous? What if he is cleaning up the streets like they address? Crime rates are down. Drugs aren't being dealt to kids. There are fewer problems in Gotham and also less criminals because he's murdering them. And you have to be like, well, is he right?
00:25:41
Speaker
because he's getting better results arguably than Batman ever has. Or is he wrong because of the way he's doing it? And that kind of feeds the old Batman line about if you kill a killer, the number of killers stays the same with a Jason Todd retort that is, what if I do more than one? And you're like, then the number's going down, right? And that's kind of the way you have to watch this movie is you're like, man, is he correct?
00:26:11
Speaker
Or is this too far? And what gives Batman the authority to stop him? Like is his seniority in Gotham the thing that allows him to stop other vigilantes? So there's a lot of that that really like played into the movie for me and I thoroughly enjoyed and just seeing like presenting an intelligent villain or foil that plans further than Batman does.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the ideas it plays with in this movie, and I think, like you said, the whole idea of, you know, he's getting better results, and what is Batman's authority, really?
Batman and His Robins: Dynamics and Morality
00:26:52
Speaker
Because when you think about it, they're... Because these stories, they crop up from time to time in movies, in TV show, in comics, and you're always kind of positioned as being on Batman's side, just by virtue of him being the protagonist.
00:27:08
Speaker
It does raise the question where it's like, well, you know, who the fuck died and made you the, you know, the Bat King. So it does raise that question of like, you know, why are you the one who gets to choose to, who does and does not get to be a vigilante, right? You know, why is it that they have to be anointed by Bruce Wayne in order to be legitimate in Gotham? So that's a good question. I mean, it's, and yeah, they,
00:27:38
Speaker
There is that whole idea of should Batman kill, which is a debate that you see all the time in fandom. And honestly, I'm kind of tired of that debate. It just gets kind of old. But presenting it this way in the story with a character like Red Hood, who exemplifies Batman's failure, I think is a very good way to have that debate without retreading the same old tired arguments that we've heard again and again and again over the years.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, because you're never going to stop hearing that argument, unfortunately, because again, like I feel like we have covered every answer possible. Yes, it's still just it keeps coming up. And as a fan in the general fandom, like we're just going to hear it forever. That just is how it is. But it's very interesting because most Batman stories is like he figures out their plot and then stops plot.
00:28:32
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, okay, good work. Even though there's some subtle misdirection and it has a big reveal at the end, it's very straightforward.
00:28:41
Speaker
And then you get into under the red hood. And like you said, you know, Batman is the title character. Like it's a Batman movie. So like you're supposed to be on his side, but the movie spends, I don't know, a third of its time on Batman, a third of its time on red hood and the other third, like watching the scenes of the city, which is very interesting because it's not like an over the shoulder shot the whole time. You're not just hanging out with Batman for the movie.
00:29:09
Speaker
and seeing him get upstaged at every single point of this movie is really almost shocking to the system. It's a huge change to just be like, wow, he's always one step ahead. That's weird because Batman's always one step ahead. Well, I think it goes to show it's that whole idea of the student becomes the master type of thing where, yeah, Jason learned everything
00:29:38
Speaker
Bruce taught Jason everything he knows, but Jason didn't only learn from Bruce, he then went out into the world and he learned other stuff too. And I think that's a good way of kind of, I do like it when they try and find different ways to expand on these sidekick characters, right?
00:29:57
Speaker
Jason obviously who went out into the world as the Red Hood and worked as a mercenary and all this kind of stuff. You've got Dick who is much more ingratiated into the superhero world with his relationships through the Titans and all that. So he's much more of a public face of Batman in a lot of ways. And you've got Tim who is the much more cerebral Robin who's much more focused on
00:30:24
Speaker
He's much better at strategy. He's much better at the detective side of things. And then you've got Damien, who's just a straight up psychopath. Yes, he is. Certainly that. But it's very interesting because it's almost that argument that people have where it's like, what if Batman
Voice Acting and Live-Action Potential
00:30:42
Speaker
had started sooner?
00:30:44
Speaker
Because you're like, you know, he got his trauma very young, but he didn't really start his training until he was like into his adulthood. Right. You're like, well, what if he started at 10 when Jason started or when Dick started or when everyone else started? You're like, what if we started them younger and with a better teacher? What do they become? And it turns out like they can either become Nightwing or they can become Red Hood. And it's impossible to tell what you're going to get.
00:31:11
Speaker
And that's one of the things I like. One of my favorite lines from any Batman media about the explanation for the need for Robin was in Young Justice when Wonder Woman was scolding Batman for the fact that he's involving a kid in these. And he says, Robin had to stop his parents' killer. Robin had to catch his parents' killer. And Wonder Woman says, why? So he could become like you? And Batman says, no, so he wouldn't become like me.
00:31:37
Speaker
And I thought that's that's a really good way of, you know, kind of justifying this, you know, concept that really, when you think about it, is pretty fucked up. I mean, Batman's basically training child soldiers. Yeah.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, and there's an interesting tie in the movie there to Young Justice because Brandon Vietti, the director for Under the Red Hood, is the same one who did Young Justice just afterwards. Oh, I never knew that. So you see that same development is carried through a lot of his work where it's like, well, let's look at this with a critical lens. What do you actually get? And you get some of the fantastic things that they've done with Young Justice to really expand on what a character would be like given realistic circumstances. Yeah.
00:32:22
Speaker
Now I think for me, the high point of this movie is, you had touched on this before, but I totally co-signed it with like Jensen Ackles. I mean, I'm a huge supernatural fan. I think I first picked up on it, I think it was like in the third season or so, and then I went back and I binged the whole thing and I became like a
00:32:41
Speaker
hardcore fan Loved it all the way through watched all 15 seasons dug it the whole way through even when it had it ups and downs It was still it still had enough fun moments where I was it still wanted me to keep watching And yeah him It's so cool seeing him because we just I just recently talked about long Halloween on the Batman by the numbers podcast and I
00:33:08
Speaker
you know, it's so cool seeing how Ackles has kind of grown as, you know, an actor in his Batman fandom, where he, you know, he started off doing Red Hood, and then he's, and now now he's voicing Batman in the movies. And, and, you know, obviously, I'm sure you've seen the pictures of him doing the Batman cosplay and stuff like that. And you think about his role as Dean on on supernatural, and
00:33:35
Speaker
Whether it's in his younger years when he was kind of like this good son who was kind of put upon, had all this trauma tied to him, that's exactly like Red Hood. That's exactly Jason Todd's story. He would have been perfect back in the day for that character. Now he's too old for that character, but I think he would also make a really awesome Batman in live action.
00:33:58
Speaker
I mean, he's got the look, he can do the gravelly voice, he can do the intensity, he can do the trauma, but he's also got this light side that he does as Dean where he could do the billionaire playboy thing very easily. Yeah, certainly. And it's been fantastic. Seeing his cosplay is so high level.
00:34:23
Speaker
that you're like, you can't help but know that he is a massive fan. And like he campaigned so hard to get some of this stuff done and is part of the reason that we have some of the fandom we have in general. And, you know, Jensen Ackles is just fantastic.
Future Batman Adaptations
00:34:40
Speaker
Like I said, I'm a huge supernatural fan as well. I don't think I made it through all of it, but
00:34:46
Speaker
You know, I was a big fan, like getting into it, and he is definitely the high point for me, so it's unsurprising that I would love him in Red Hood and in Supernatural, given the amount of character work that goes into both.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah. In fact, my dream casting at one point was, you know, Ackles as Jason Todd and Padalecki as Nightwing. I think bringing that dynamic from Supernatural, seeing them play that out as Red Hood and Nightwing would have been really interesting. And that's something that we've, you know, unfortunately missed the boat on now. But once upon a time and maybe in an alternate universe somewhere, we did get that happen.
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's one of those that makes me very hopeful. You know, when you look at casting for things is I'm like, man, I would love to see, you know, instead of rehashing more and more Batman, like let's give traditional Bruce a break.
00:35:40
Speaker
And now that we've done the new Flash movie, like, let's see Michael Keaton as old Bruce. And I would love to see a Terry McGinnis adaptation. And we have like some fantastic people like Tanner Buchanan, who plays Robbie Keene on Cobra Kai has volunteered for like Batman roles. He's like, please, I would love to do this. I'm like, he would make a fantastic Terry McGinnis. You know, I was
00:36:09
Speaker
I have thought about this a lot ever since, you know, we saw ever since, you know, they announced that Michael Keaton was going to be coming back in the flash. And I had been hoping because you see him now he looks like that he looks like he's a live action version of that old Bruce Wayne, like he he just perfectly fits the part now. And
00:36:33
Speaker
And that was something I was wondering about, like who would be a good Terry McGinnis? I had never thought about that, but now that you mentioned that, it clicks completely into place. That would be a dream project. And I'm pretty sure James Gunn is not listening to the show, but if some reason he is, please make that happen because there's no reason you can't have both. We've got the multiverse, we can have, you know,
00:36:57
Speaker
a younger Batman with Damien in The Brave and the Bold. We can have the year two Batman with Robert Pattinson and you can have old Batman with Michael Keaton. It is possible to do all three of them. Audiences will totally accept it. So like this is something that definitely needs to happen. Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of those Hey, if anyone influential is listening right now and looking for some help, I will gladly volunteer my assistance in
00:37:22
Speaker
whatever that is, even if I'm just going to get, you know, face painted white and I'm part of the Joker's gang that gets beat up for three minutes straight, like, sign me up, I'll be there, whatever it is. Yeah.
Criticisms of Film Adaptation Choices
00:37:33
Speaker
Now, for me, I think one of the biggest missteps of this movie is the casting of John DiMaggio. Like, he's a great voice actor. He's done a lot of really good roles. I thought he was much better than in Long Halloween.
00:37:48
Speaker
But he just does not fit the Joker at all. His voice is too deep. He doesn't have, you know, he doesn't have like that. It doesn't have to necessarily be like, you know, a Mark Hamlin personation, but it should have some more variation in it. I just don't picture him as the Joker and his voice always takes me out of this movie.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those where every time I see someone take a new adaptation on anything Batman is I'm like, okay, let's consider this Joker to be a standalone. Like it's supposed to be someone out there's favorite version of the Joker. And I think John DiMaggio again, like a fantastic voice actor, absolutely capable of it. He does play a very different Joker.
00:38:34
Speaker
And like, you know, I liked some of the jokes, the way it lands, but he also, and I don't think it's his fault, but he has the biggest cringe of the entire movie to me, which is anytime I am sharing this movie or I'm rewatching it even by myself, and I hear him make the same joke at the end of the movie that he makes at the start of the movie, and it's a bad joke, I'm like, oh man, please, please make it stop.
00:39:03
Speaker
Cause he's like, oh, when I wore that costume, it was more Mater D than biker fetish or whatever. And I'm like, just please, please stop. It wasn't good the first time. Please don't say it twice. Yeah. And that's another thing. I think that the movie doesn't do quite as good a job on is establishing that history of the Red Hood. I think they give you, they give you enough to really kind of know it, but I don't think it's, it always, it never feels like it quite,
00:39:32
Speaker
connects the same way as it did in the comics. Yeah. And I think that's like the unfortunate truth of this specific movie is it's only 76 minutes long. Yeah. So if you had just given us, you know, a full length or even another 20 minutes on that, make it an hour and a half movie, like we'd have gotten a lot more done because otherwise they tried to do it like during chase scenes. They all end up in like very pivotal memory based moments.
00:40:01
Speaker
And you're like, that's great for people who don't know it, but it's not a lot of context. That has been one of my ongoing criticism with a lot of these DC animated movies is the runtime. Like if you just beefed it up just a little bit, I think you could really expand on that story a little bit more. Or even if you had done this like a two-parter, like if you had done a Death in the Family movie and then done Under the Red Hood, I think that would have been another way to do it instead of the,
00:40:29
Speaker
the weird butchered version of Death in the Family we got with the alternate endings, which I've never been able to see all the way through because HBO Max didn't have them on it. So yeah, I was, I feel like that aspect of it, it's, and I think
00:40:44
Speaker
My understanding, I could be wrong about this, but when we talked about All-Star Superman, my guest at that time, he had mentioned that the reason that movie was the link that was, was because it was edited so that it could be fit into these blocks on Cartoon Network at the time. This is a much more adult-oriented movie, so I'm not sure if it's the same case with this movie, but if it is, that would explain why it's got a short runtime.
00:41:10
Speaker
Even if they added 10 minutes more, I think it would have made a huge difference to to help explain some of that stuff. I mean, you know, us as fans, it doesn't really matter. We know we have that context going in, but most people are not going to have that context. And I think that is I think that that's a misstep. Yeah. Well, and especially given how much content they cover, I mean, under the Red Hood is a massive arc to just like jam into an hour worth of stuff.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah. Because they still have to like, you have to tell the prequel and the setup and then get into Under the Red Hood. Realistically, you only have an hour of storytelling to cover the entire arc. And I'm like, you just need just a little bit more room, like just squeeze it, whatever it takes, just a little more. Well, even that's not the biggest offender, right? You know, the Injustice series had like, you know, five years of comics, they jammed it into one movie. Yeah. I think, sorry, go ahead.
00:42:06
Speaker
I was going to say there's just a lot of that because, you know, and I think that is appealing to the general masses, like, especially if you're going to release a straight
Exploring Emotional Depth in 'Under the Red Hood'
00:42:14
Speaker
to TV, DVD, whatever it is, like you got to kind of keep it punchy.
00:42:19
Speaker
But for the rest of us that are like super fans of this content to start with, like I'll sit down and watch a three hour movie. I'll be a little like offended at first that it's three hours, but I will enjoy it all the way through. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing I really liked about this movie and and I my I had watched this movie before I read the comic. It wasn't until years later that I read the comic and my impression of it.
00:42:45
Speaker
just from the basic concept and before I even saw the movie was that Red Hood is mad at Batman because Batman didn't save his life. And then you watch the movie and the scene when he's got Batman there and he's confronting the Joker and he's confronting Batman about the fact the Joker is still alive. And Ackles plays it perfectly. He plays that wounded son thing so well that he pulls from supernatural, right?
00:43:15
Speaker
And it's not so much that he's angry at Batman. It's that he misses the chances, the opportunities he had to spend more time with him. When he says that line, he took me away from you. He says that with such hurt in his voice. And as a father, that hits me every time I hear it now.
00:43:39
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and that's like that, that entire scenes delivery is so good. And it's purely from Jensen Ackles. Like he carries that entire emotional delivery from like when he pulls him up and he says, you're mad at me, not at you. And he just says like, I'm not mad at you. I forgave you immediately. It's never been about that. Like, but you know, he dives into it where he says, you know, forget about all the people he's put in graveyards or all of our friends that he's crippled.
00:44:09
Speaker
Like just for me, just for me, you couldn't get rid of him. Like there's no redeeming qualities in this person. You couldn't have done that just for me, not because I died, but because like we couldn't continue what we had. And I'm like, Oh man, that is, that is a brutal delivery. And it like, it lands in utter silence in the movie. And that makes you like really hold your breath.
00:44:36
Speaker
I think that's another failure, I think. I mean, I think Bruce Greenwood is a good actor and he does a serviceable job in here, but I don't feel like he quite gives the Batman side the same emotional delivery to really kind of understand his point of view as you get from Ackles as the Red Hood.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely like, Ackles was a class above everyone in that movie and I don't know if it's the personal passion or if he just has a genuine talent for voice acting that is underappreciated. Or it might also just be the experience he has playing such a similar character on Supernatural too.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, it could be like he's already in character. He's just leans in a little further. But it would be interesting to see like if that movie was remade and updated. And, you know, we got to see, you know, just even if they they got the permission to use fan favorite Kevin Conroy in like an AI reproduced telling of that story, how different it would be. And if it really like if that's what sold me more on the movie or if it was like, oh,
00:45:43
Speaker
That wasn't really what was holding me up, but it's interesting to hear a difference. Yeah, yeah. The Batman side of this, it feels kind of flat throughout. I don't really feel like we get the same emotional train ride that he should be going on in this. He goes through the motions, but that's all it really feels like. It doesn't feel like he's got that same emotional connection to all this.
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah. And you get most of like, honestly, the framing and comic relief of this movie comes out of either Alfred or Nightwing. Yeah. When they say like, you know, Nightwing's being carried off. And he goes, did he just say thank you? Like acknowledging how weird that is in character to be like, what is he going through that he just said thank you? Because I've been working side by side with him and he never says it.
00:46:38
Speaker
I think Nightwing, I want to talk about Nightwing too, because I think, again, this is also kind of a missed opportunity because you've got those, you've got the two sons there, right? You've got the prodigal son in Jason, you've got the good son in Dick, and you don't get any sense of
00:46:57
Speaker
that dichotomy between them. I think the movie is trying to set that up, which is why they have Nightwing in there for so long, but he ultimately doesn't... They don't land that plane as effectively as I wish they could have, which again is probably a sacrifice of the short runtime. Yeah, and I think part of it is... It was beyond the story they were trying to tell. There's a lot of family aspect in it, but what they did by eliminating Nightwing so quickly
00:47:27
Speaker
was just to say, look at how dangerous Red Hood is. We just showed you Batman and Nightwing working together, and Nightwing is immediately out of commission within the first 10 minutes of his appearance in the movie. That's how quick and dangerous this adversary we've given you is. And it's like, yeah, I'd love to have seen some more of him and even just more characterization, because Nightwing
00:47:52
Speaker
you know, it felt really shallow just because we didn't see him very long. But yeah, I think it was all to establish a threat.
00:48:02
Speaker
And then after that, they're like, we don't have the bandwidth to also get through a dick story. It's a shame because Dick and Jason, they've got such a fraught relationship, which is one of the things I loved about Titans when they went into that with with on that show. But and, you know, Neil Patrick Harris is, you know, he does a great job as Nightwing in the brief time that he is in this movie and.
00:48:27
Speaker
I would have loved to see him and Ackles play off each other a little bit and play a little bit with that idea of the brother aspect of their little family dynamic. And it's a shame that we don't get that here is one of the regrets I have, especially because Red Hood is your favorite of the Bat family. For me, Nightwing is my favorite of the Bat family. So as a Nightwing fan, too, it's also kind of a letdown.
00:48:56
Speaker
Yeah. And that feels like one of the big missed opportunities that like a longer runtime would have given us is how upset and disappointed everyone should have been by the Jason Todd reveal. Yeah. And we only really get that like.
00:49:11
Speaker
Alfred, when he first sees the DNA match, he drops everything he's holding, which is very unbecoming of Alfred. And then at the end, he says, do you want me to remove his costume from the cave? And that's the most potent line, I think, that you get out of Batman in the movie is this changes nothing. And it's like those two very different attitudes about it. But I would have loved to have seen Dick Grayson react to
00:49:41
Speaker
Oh my God, that's Jason. And you just, we don't get it at all. Like he doesn't even know by the canon of the story, he's not there for any of that reveal. He doesn't even know he was there.
00:49:53
Speaker
I think the movie kind of takes it for granted that the audience knows that this is gonna be, that Red Hood is Jason Todd. And I don't think that they're, and I think they're just trying, they're not playing up the mystery aspect of that. Like you compare it to, and I felt like the Arkham Knight game had the same problem where it didn't really, it just took it for granted that you're gonna know that it's obviously gonna be Jason Todd under that mask. So when the reveal comes, it's very underwhelming the way it's presented and the,
00:50:23
Speaker
And the strength of the movie is is not necessarily in that unveiling, but you should still, you know, it's not it may not be a surprise to us, but it's supposed to be a surprise to the characters. And I don't feel like it's played up enough as how how they react to that. Yeah, we get like a chair flip and a tray drop. And that's in the span of, you know, 15 seconds. And then it's just that's it. All right. Well done. Yeah.
00:50:50
Speaker
And like, yeah, Batman has kind of a whole thing where he goes to race and
Red Hood vs Batman: Justice Methods
00:50:55
Speaker
he, you know, breaks into the palace and he's throwing him around and he's threatening him. And like, they tell the dramatic story, but there really is no, like, there's no emotion in the reveal where you're like, oh, I'm upset at what is currently happening, but not because it's Jason just because like, oh, I should have figured that out. And you're like, well, why would you know this?
00:51:16
Speaker
I think the race scene is really cool in that aspect, because it is really interesting in that aspect, I should say, because race seems to have more of an emotional reaction to it than Batman does. One of the things I loved, I loved the characterization of race in this movie, right? The fact that it really makes you feel that respect and admiration he has for Batman.
00:51:44
Speaker
And that's something that, you know, kind of got lost in the Nolan films. But, you know, if you watch the animated series, I thought did a good job of handling and which has always been there in the comics too, is the fact that, you know, Raish admires Bruce. Raish wants to work with Bruce. He likes Bruce as a person. He just thinks Bruce is misguided and it's his job to keep Bruce off his back or hopefully convince him to take up his mantle, right? That's what he wants to do.
00:52:13
Speaker
And you really get that sense in this movie when he says that, look, I hired the Joker and I did it because I just thought he would be an annoying distraction for you so that I could go about my business in peace. And I was horrified by what he did.
00:52:30
Speaker
And hearing that come from Rache, who believes that humanity needs to be eradicated in large numbers to improve the planet, that's a pretty big deal for him to say, I'm mourning the death of this one human.
00:52:46
Speaker
because he's your son. And he's like, and I want it. And it's my fault. And I wanted to make that right. And as misguided as it is, but the fact that he says, like, after that, I avoided you, right? I stayed out of your life. I stayed out of your way because I didn't want to come into conflict with you anymore. I felt I had taken too much from you. I totally bought his rationale, twisted though it may be, it still made sense to me.
00:53:12
Speaker
Oh yeah, I absolutely loved Rache in the movie because he is just, like you say, he's characterized so well is you're like, why is Rache not being a bigger villain? And you're like, it's because he is an unwitting participant in what happened. Like he didn't know it was going to go here. He is horrified. He is sorry. This is his apology to just say like, I'm sorry, I won't. It's almost like an ex that didn't want to break up.
00:53:38
Speaker
where they're like, look, I won't come around anymore. I'm really sorry for what happened. I just, you know, I hope things will be okay in your life. And I tried to set them right as best I could. And you're like, it's so interesting to see that aspect of him versus like, I control a league of assassins and I'm going to murder everyone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I thought that was it was so well done with him.
00:54:05
Speaker
The other thing is, another thing I like too is, and you'd kind of touched on this before when you're talking about how Jason is being a more effective crime fighter by, you know, it's, it's funny, he basically does the Green Hornet approach, if you ever watched the very familiar with that character, where, you know, the whole idea is like, he's posing as a criminal, but it's really to take down bad guys.
00:54:29
Speaker
That's, that's essentially what Jason is doing here. He is pulling, um, he's pulling a green hornet. And I thought this was such a better execution of that concept than honestly, any green hornet adaptation we've ever gotten. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And it like, it comes out.
00:54:47
Speaker
very dark and that's intentional right given like the entirety of Batman knowledge that anyone has like this is a very dark take like the setting difference which I think is much more real to Gotham
00:55:01
Speaker
to say like, yeah, people are dying left and right. And you see every manner of that inside this movie, people are getting shot, stabbed, blown up, immolated, like there's decapitations and all kinds of stuff where you're like, wow, this is a really aggressive Batman universe. And you're like, yes, and yet it doesn't happen to anyone innocent. Like everyone in this movie that you see it happen to raises the question, is this overkill?
00:55:31
Speaker
Did they deserve it? Is he still wrong? It makes you pick a side. And sometimes you look at the sides and you're like, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe what I thought, you can't just mass murder everybody. And then you see it played out and you're like,
00:55:49
Speaker
look, he's out of line, but he's not wrong. Well, another thing too, it makes me think of is, so there's this idea among, and I can take it back to Japan for for a minute here. And over here, there's for a long time, there was kind of this idea that the police had regarding the yakuza, where they're like, look, crime is going to exist. So it's better if it's organized than than opposed to if it's chaotic. And
00:56:15
Speaker
That was something that a lot of police officers sincerely believed for a very long time here, which is how the Yakuza was able to get so powerful in the first place. Things have been turning on that in the past 10 or 15 years, but I think that's an interesting idea that you look at it in the context of the Batman universe and you see
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah, Batman stopped the mob. He got rid of a lot. He helped clean up the Gotham Police Department. Things are a lot better than they were before. But now you have psychotic clowns and crime lords in masks and all these different super villains now that you never had before. That whole theme of Batman
Conclusion: The Impact of 'Under the Red Hood'
00:57:05
Speaker
being a source of inspiration unintentionally for the villains. And like, you know, that idea of escalation that I thought was done so well in The Dark Knight. Whereas, so Jason knows all that, right? He lived that firsthand. He saw what the results of that is, is you get beaten to death with a crowbar while a psychopath giggles over you. And he's trying to find a different way. And it seems to be working.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, and it really is like you traded criminals for villains. And that just means like they need a theater, a stage to perform on and still have the same goals. So yeah, there's a little less chaos. It's a little more predictable, but it's also way more dramatic. Like the people you have created
00:57:57
Speaker
might not be as widespread as before, but they're way more violent, like incredibly. So like they now want to be an icon like you are an icon. Yeah. And so when you look back at it, you're like, okay, he's definitely killing people, but they openly acknowledge there's no more drugs and schools, parks, the streets, like the drug deals that are happening are happening in a very sanctioned area. So do you want your criminals back?
00:58:28
Speaker
Or do you want kind of a villain who has an entire rule set of morals that he operates by? Like, which is truly worse?
00:58:37
Speaker
And the killing people thing, it's not like a punisher situation where he's just killing anybody who breaks the law. He's doing it in a controlled, methodical, strategic way. He's killing the people who, as a warning to others, and he's saying, look, you're going to fall in line now. And if anyone steps out of line, then they suffer the consequences.
00:58:59
Speaker
He's not a stone cold psychopath. He's doing this with an actual plan in mind and that's something Batman never had a plan. As much as we talk about Batman's strategic mind and how he's always thinking 10 steps ahead of everybody. He's playing 3D chess while everyone else is playing checkers.
00:59:23
Speaker
Yeah, in an individual battle, maybe. But over the long term, his plan to fight crime is just basically to beat it up, and that's it.
00:59:35
Speaker
When you see that, like when played against him, his plans quickly fall apart. It's like you could give Batman every advantage you want, but it still goes exactly the way that, you know, Jason wants it to go in the movie. Yeah. Like he sets up an entire room of criminals.
00:59:54
Speaker
knowing that Batman's going to chase them down. And when he does chase them down, he'll total the vehicle. And when the vehicle is totaled, a mezzo pops out. And then you have to murder a mezzo. And that means you need to question the criminals. And then he kills the criminals. And, like, every single step is already prethought. He's like, I made a grand web of design and you are just playing into it. Because at every point from the start of the movie to the end of the movie, like,
01:00:23
Speaker
it's just Jason Todd directing. He is in charge of literally every step. Now, one of the downsides to that too is they set up this very interesting ethical debate between Bruce and Jason that never gets resolved, right? As soon as we get into the fact that he is Jason and Bruce knows that for sure, then it becomes all about killing the Joker and, you know,
01:00:53
Speaker
getting revenge or getting justice for what the Joker did to Jason and it becomes all about the father-son dynamic which again is totally interesting that's the best scene in the movie but I also feel like now that we're talking about it it does feel like
01:01:09
Speaker
the the the core the the plot that they were working at as kind of a springboard has just been kind of dropped right this whole idea about this i mean because what happens now is red hood still in control of these gangs is um because he hasn't been stopped he's still out there
01:01:28
Speaker
Bruce hasn't convinced him of another way. So it's and this is stuff that, you know, could have been picked up in a sequel, but we never got a sequel to that. So that's kind of a kind of a disappointment, which of this of this movie I felt.
01:01:42
Speaker
Well, I think there's two acts to this whole movie, right? In the first act, it is the setup. You have a random villain, which just happens to be Jason Todd. And until the reveal, the movie is, hey, Batman, come chase me. Yeah. Right? Like, you can try to stop me. You can try and do whatever you want, but you can't. And I'm going to routinely not kill you, just so that you know I have the upper hand, which is going to drive you insane.
01:02:12
Speaker
And then once the reveal happens, it becomes like, will Batman help Jason? And Jason's point of view is, you're going to help me and there's nothing you can do about it. Like at every step, you're going to do what I want you to do, even if you don't want that. Like you're going to be on my side. So when the fearsome hand of four, the originals, right, for this movie that have never existed before or after show up,
01:02:41
Speaker
Jason Todd is like baiting the fight. And they said like, wow, I really thought you'd put up more of a fight. And he said, no, I'm just waiting. Like I'm, I'm bait. I'm a delay. And then Batman shows up and when he doesn't finish the job fast enough, Jason kills a guy. And he says, that's on you. If you were faster, if you were better, if you worked like me, I wouldn't have killed that guy.
01:03:04
Speaker
And then the next one, it's like, oh, I orchestrated all these things. They got the Joker released. I'm going to let the criminals be lit on fire. You can either come get me or you can stop them from burning to death. But if you stop them, I'm getting away. And so when he does like he stops the fire, he picks up the Joker. He unwillingly gives Jason the escape from the bridge that he needs.
01:03:31
Speaker
because otherwise it's just Jason and the Joker on a bridge surrounded by cops.
01:03:36
Speaker
But when Batman hooks the Joker with an aerial crane, essentially, and then Jason jumps onto the Joker, he gives him the escape into the underwater that he wanted the whole time. So he's like, you're still helping me. Every step of this, you're going to assist me, even if you don't want to. And if you do, it's easier for me. So what do you pick? And it's a weird divide, but I can see why it played out that way.
01:04:06
Speaker
My whole thing is, though, I think they they set it up too well, though, because then you have that whole idea there that it's like, well, Jason hasn't been stopped. He's still in control of these gangs. What's Bruce going to do now? So they almost set him up too well because the movie doesn't have a plan for that part of it. Yeah. Well, and that happens all the way to the end, even when you're like, OK.
01:04:29
Speaker
I know you're Jason. I'm going to stop you. Even if that means, you know, beating the absolute hell out of you. I'm going to stop you. And so you see that fight and you're like, Oh man, it was pretty even at the start. But now, now Batman has the upper hand. He's really kind of knocking him around. He throws him through a building and then he beats him up in a bathroom and he kicks him through a wall.
01:04:50
Speaker
And you're like, yeah, but where does that fight end? It ends not in the same building, but in the exact same room that Jason had intentionally already had a captive Joker and a series of bombs. So it's like even at the end when you're finally seeing him like, oh, he's stopping the Red Hood. This is the climax of the decision he had to make.
01:05:11
Speaker
Like you're still playing on his terms. The whole thing was just like more bait. He's just chumming the waters. And no matter which direction you swim in, like it's all a cage. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a pretty good note to end on. Was there anything else you wanted to mention about Under the Red Hood? No, I mean, honestly, the biggest thing I would say about Under the Red Hood is like a deep plea.
01:05:39
Speaker
From every corner of my heart, please watch it. If you haven't watched it, it's such a good movie, even if you don't like animated movies. And as we said, it's unfortunately too short, but also if it's not your thing, it's pretty short, so just give it a shot. That would be my takeaway on the whole movie.
01:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it does a good job, especially with Jason and with the race, like we said. Even though I don't like the voice acting of the Joker, I think the story itself does a good job of presenting the fact that the Joker is somebody that everybody is afraid of, right? Even the villains don't want to deal with him. So I thought that was also something that was done pretty well. But really,
01:06:26
Speaker
The standout of it for me is and has always been Jensen Ackles. He just brings so much emotion to that performance and he sells it so well. Again, I was not a fan of the Red Hood concept to begin with. So when I saw this movie, his performance alone completely turned me around on that concept. And it made me say like, okay, well,
01:06:52
Speaker
Now I want to see it because my impression, again, was that it was just going to be, oh, he's angry that he he's angry at Batman. So now he's going to be like a Punisher type. And it's so much more complex than that. And I'm so glad that they went that direction instead. Yeah. Yeah. If this movie is in an elevated position, Jensen Ackles is the pedestal that holds it up. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
01:07:14
Speaker
All right, Colton, well, thanks so much for coming on and talking. It's a fun discussion about the different layers to this movie. So why don't you tell people where they can find your stuff?
Episode Wrap-Up and Promotions
01:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, just dumb enough podcast. You can find it anywhere podcasts are played and some other places as well. But, you know, if you want to check it out, I always tell people like just pick a random episode that sounds interesting to you. Like maybe bees isn't your thing, but a psychic medium is or, you know, twisted psychology or lightsaber combat like we have all of it. So I said, just pick pick one you like and just start there. I'll be.
01:07:51
Speaker
more than happy if you just spend a couple minutes listening to me. Okay, cool. Well, again, thanks for coming on. And please, please make sure to check out that show. We'll have links to that in the show notes. As for us, superhero cinephiles.com is the website super cinema pod on Instagram, and blue sky, technically also on Twitter, although now that Elon Musk is a psychopath, I don't spend a lot of time over there. So mostly, you'll find me on blue sky these days. And
01:08:20
Speaker
Don't forget to, we have the Patreon page, patreon.com slash superhero cinephiles. If you want to donate, get access to the episodes in advance and other fun stuff like that. Plus, I've got my comic book that is still crowdfunding, Paragons of Earth. I'm working on it with Thomas DJ, who was co-writing it with me. Eric Johns, who is the penciler, he also used to do work on the Razor comics back in the 90s.
01:08:44
Speaker
and I'm doing everything else. I'm doing the coloring, the writing, the inking, the lettering. So please check us out. It is crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic. That is crowdfunder without the .com slash paragonscomic and links to that will also be in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
01:09:05
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Superhero Cinephiles is produced by me, Percival Constantine, with the support of Zencaster. The show is created by myself and the late, great Derek Ferguson, our host, Emeritus. Visit us on the web at SuperheroCinephiles.com to listen to past episodes or find out how you can be a guest yourself. Support the show by visiting our advertiser links or click the Buy Me a Coffee link on the website to make a one-time donation. You can also support us by visiting Crowdfunder.com slash ParagonsComic. That's Crowdfunder with no E,
01:09:33
Speaker
dot com slash paragons comic and help support my superhero comic book paragons of earth We are super cinema pod on both instagram and blue sky So please be sure to follow us We'd also appreciate if you could rate and review the show on apple podcasts and share us with your friends