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Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
221 Plays3 years ago
Demond Thompson of the Demond Does and Disputed podcasts makes his long-discussed return to the show for a chat about Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. We talk about the controversy surrounding the film's initial release, the Batman Beyond series in general, and other related Bat-topics.
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Transcript
Joker's Distraction and Humor
00:00:13
Speaker
Joker's vain and likes to talk. He'll try to distract you, but don't listen. Block it out and power on through. Wait. I like to talk too. What are you doing? Fighting dirty. The real Batman would never... Told you you didn't know me. Funny guy. Can't say the same for you.
00:00:44
Speaker
Not a comedian, I'll tell you that. Shut your mouth! The real Batman never talked to you much, did he? That's probably why you were so fixated on him. Don't play psychoanalyst with me, boy! Oh, I don't need a degree to figure you out. The real reason you kept coming back was you never got a laugh out of the old man.
00:01:11
Speaker
I'm not hearing this. Get a clue, Clowney. He's got no sense of humor. He wouldn't know a good joke if it bit him in the cake. Not that you ever had a good joke. Shut up. Shut up! I mean, joy buzzers, squirting flowers, lame. Where's the A material? Make a face, drop your pants, something. Show yourself. You make me laugh.
00:01:32
Speaker
but only because I think you're kind of pathetic. Stop that! So you fell in a tank of acid, got your skin bleached, and then decided to become a supervillain. What? You couldn't get work as a rodeo clown? Don't you dare laugh at me! Why? I thought the Joker always wanted to make Batman laugh. You're not Batman!
Superhero Cinephiles Podcast Introduction
00:02:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and bringing on another returning guest, although it's been a little bit of a game trying to get you back on the show, and that's Daman Thompson. Daman, how are you doing today? I am amazing. How are you? I'm doing good. So let's see if I'm remembering this correctly. I think we originally tried to do this before Christmas, and then...
00:02:30
Speaker
I think we had it scheduled in January and now it's March and we've finally been able to get you out back on the show. It has been quite the adventure, the adventure in just real life and you know you've got a lot of stuff going on. I got a lot of stuff going on in this and it was just
00:02:46
Speaker
I just felt like I'm really sorry. I need to push this back. But there's some stuff we got to take care of, you know, but it's it. It's everything is on the upswing. And we finally got time to carve out. Yeah. We're half a world away from each other. That's a pretty mean. It's no mean feat.
00:03:04
Speaker
I mean, it's actually kind of amazing that I'm able to do as many episodes, as many different people as I do considering all the time differences and my own schedule, which it also gets crazy from time to time. So yeah, it's amazing I'm able to get anybody on this show at all.
00:03:23
Speaker
Well, that probably says a lot about you more than anything because with you being in Japan and having all the things going on with your family, just like the rest of us, and then having to work around all these time zones and stuff. And the fact that so many people want to be on this show and that you've had all these things, that's a testament to you as well as the TV show. So, take your flowers.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker Film Insights
00:03:53
Speaker
But today we are talking about Batman Beyond Return of the Joker. So this was, because back when they had the, I think this actually came out after the TV show ended, if I'm not mistaken, but I can't remember exactly. I want to say it was the same, I think the season was finishing up. I think the last season, I think the third season was finishing up when this was released. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
00:04:21
Speaker
One of the questions a lot of people had about Batman Beyond when it came out was, you know, whether or not they'd have any of the old villains on. And with a few exceptions, they generally didn't, but they had, they did an episode with Mr. Freeze, they did an episode with Rachelle Ghoul. And then, and then for like the big finale, they did this direct-to-video movie with the Joker coming back with, of course, Mark Hamill coming back to, to reprise him as well.
00:04:51
Speaker
So before we, yeah, so before we get into the movie itself, let's talk a little bit about Batman Beyond and history, because I remember when this show came out and it was announced as the follow-up to Batman, the animated series. And I don't know about you, but my first reaction to the news was, oh, that sounds stupid. And then I actually watched the show and I'm like, oh wait, this is actually really freaking good.
00:05:20
Speaker
I, how do I put this? I had a lot going on during this time. So I'm not, I wasn't, I kind of catch things either after the
Appreciation for Batman Beyond's Style
00:05:31
Speaker
fact or right. Like I'm just behind the curve when it comes to some of the stuff, just, you know, the way life goes. And so I didn't hear much of the buildup. And then I heard, it was like Batman Beyond, it takes place, you know, X-Men of your future or Batman of like,
00:05:44
Speaker
Hmm. Well, they did great with Batman, the animated series, and that was a hard sell for me. And then as soon as the credits started, the opening credits started like, I mean, give it to me. Let's see what we got. I really like the show. I thought the show was great. Yeah, it was great. And I've been rewatching episodes here and there now that it's all on HBO Max. And
00:06:08
Speaker
And yeah, it's it was it was a really good show and it you know mixing in with like cyberpunk and nor and all that kind of stuff mix it in with with Batman. It's just it goes. This is one of the things Derek always said was that Batman is the kind of character that you could really take and put in any type of different situation and
00:06:27
Speaker
You know, recently we had done Soul of the Dragon, which was a, you know, 1970s inspired Batman Kung-Fu film. And then there's, and then you have this where it's, you know, Batman in a cyberpunk set. And it really kind of shows that he can fit into any different type of, any type of story you wanna tell.
00:06:45
Speaker
Then you got Gotham by Gaslight as well. That was one of the ones on my mind. Yeah. Yeah. A detective story is a detective story is a detective story. And that definitely helps with Batman.
Censorship in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
00:06:58
Speaker
And it's the essence of Batman and not him beating up criminals.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And this one really leads into the detective aspect too, in ways that I hadn't really remembered. But back when it first came out, like it was, there was a sanitized version that came out back when this was released in 2000, because this was directed video. And I had the old, bought the VHS when it came out. And the original, I'm not sure, did you ever see the original cut or did you only see the uncut version?
00:07:28
Speaker
I've seen both. Okay, yeah. So yeah, the original cut for anyone who, because if you watch it on HBO Max or something now, it's only the uncut version, but I don't think the original, the original cut exists anywhere anymore. But the original cut, they had completely changed one of the major story points because one of the major points is
00:07:48
Speaker
you know, in this movie, in the flashback scenes, the reason why Tim Drake stopped being Robin and why Batman kind of pushed everyone up, like all the Bat family, why he kind of pushed them away was because the Joker and Harley Quinn had kidnapped Tim Drake Robin and they had brainwashed him and basically turned him into, you know, a little Joker. They, you know, the whole idea was we want to start a family was what they were saying.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, baby J. Yeah. Yeah, that was from and that's the it was kind of it was. Oh, gosh, the storyline where they killed Jason Todd. Well, the fans killed Jason Todd was Death in the family. Death in the family. Yeah. Death in the family was the Scott Snyder one that came later. Death in the family. Death in the family. Yeah. Yes. OK, yes.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, so it was kind of like their take on the Jason Todd story, because Tim Drake in the animated series, he was always pretty much Tim Drake in name only. He was very much more Jason Todd, I always thought, which is one of the things, because Tim Drake was always my favorite, Robin. So that was one of the things that kind of disappointed me when they brought him into the animated series. Is there a reason why they skip past Jason Todd?
00:09:04
Speaker
No, I think they just, I'm not, they never, I don't remember them ever, I've never read a reason why, but they said that they didn't, one of the things that they didn't want, I think it was because Tim Drake was definitely the more popular Robin. And if they had brought in Jason Todd, there would have been an expectation that they were going to kill him off right away. So I think they wanted to avoid any of that speculation. So they kind of merged Jason's personality and put it onto Tim's character. And so he became, um,
00:09:34
Speaker
So he had very much the same origin story that Jason Todd had, like his mom was out of the picture, his dad had these associations with two-face and two-face, and after his dad died, you know, Bruce takes him in. And so it was very, very much a similar thing. And he had the kind of like, you know,
00:09:49
Speaker
street smart attitude and all that that Jason Todd had. So I always was disappointed in that because like I said, Tim Drake was, he was a much more, he was a very different kind of Robin from Jason Todd. And that kind of disappointed me a lot. Cause I don't think we've, Titans has done an okay job with him so far, but I don't think we've really gotten the kind of Tim Drake that I, that I loved in the comics and in live action yet.
00:10:13
Speaker
Hmm. Wait a minute, there was something I was going to ask you about Tim Drake. What was it?
Tim Drake's Character Evolution
00:10:21
Speaker
Oh, was Tim Drake the Robin at the time that this movie came out? Yeah, yeah, because this came out in 2000. And yeah, I think that probably had something to do with that as well. Yeah, Tim Drake was Robin up until it was up until the
00:10:38
Speaker
Damien came in, came into the picture I think I mean they hadn't spoiler took over her Robin for a brief period in the early 2000s but Damien came in and that would have been like you know, mid or mid to late ought something like that I believe was when that happens been that long, something like that. Yeah, yeah.
00:10:57
Speaker
But yeah, so in the original cut, the Joker's death happens by accident. In the uncut version, Tim Drake actually shoots him and kills him himself. And the censors thought that was too extreme. So they had changed it around.
00:11:25
Speaker
and he had like died by like, you know, spilled some water over it and gotten electrocuted or something like that. And it was kind of like a clumsy kind of death scene. And it really kind of lacked the punch that the original, they'd also done some other changes. Like they'd edit out some of the blood and some of that kind of stuff. Yeah. They also edited out how they killed, what's his name? Bonk. Yeah. At the beginning, they, I think he dies off screen or something. I'm, I'm, I'm not 100% sure. Cause I know they didn't show him getting shot in the chest either.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, the Joker shoots him and they'd changed it to something else. They'd use a different animation or they had edited that scene out or something like that. Yeah, yeah, I remember reading about that too. There was quite a bit. There was even, I don't have it in front of me, I could probably look it up, but they have, there's changes in dialogue even because it was too harsh. And just something small,
00:12:22
Speaker
Well, I guess relatively, in my opinion, something small like the fight scene in when the spoiler alert, the, uh, uh, for a movie that's 20 years old. Yeah. Right. That the jokers, uh, rush, uh, the club that Tara Terry's at and they're trying to jump Terry. And there's a, uh, the, when they get the guns and one of them screamed slag in which, you know, in, in that.
00:12:46
Speaker
in that universe is killing men, you know, in slang. That's actually not in the unedited version, which Okay, okay, like stuff like like little stuff like that. Like, there's another thing about how hard how Harley quid.
00:13:01
Speaker
They say in this that the unedited version that, you know, Harley Quinn died and they mentioned in the other one, like she fell or... No, they said that she had never, even in the uncut version, they said, because she still appears at the end, right? Right, right. Well, I'm just talking about, like, before we know that, it was like something that Barbara, I think it was a conversation between Barbara and...
00:13:24
Speaker
and Terry yeah she had Barbara says in the uncut for I don't remember what she said in the original one but in the uncut version she says we never found Harley Quinn's body right right yeah they changed that around too it was just like like those types of things which I think is weird because you can't because kids are smarter than
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah. That these people can, since it's what I gave them credit for. Well, what had happened was, because this was originally set to come out, uh, Halloween 2000, but you know, you had the Columbine in 1999 and that had really kind of had this backlash against violence and in children's media, like, you know, every time, like every time in the, there was a school shoot, and this happens still to an extent,
00:14:04
Speaker
but back then it was like every time there was some sort of school shooting or some sort of anything involving kids and violence you had this massive you know pearl clutching of people saying that oh we have to there's too much violence in kids media you know it's doom was the big targeted video game back then maryland manson all that kind of stuff became like power rangers at one time became a target and
00:14:30
Speaker
Oh yeah, Power Rangers was a huge, there was a huge backlash against Power Rangers that first came out. Wow, really? That's ridiculous. Well, in fact, so much so that, do you remember the, and I've told this story before, but do you remember the
The Advanced Batman Beyond Suit
00:14:43
Speaker
Spider-Man animated series in the mid-90s?
00:14:46
Speaker
Yes on Fox. The censors had so many ridiculous restrictions on that show. And like, even one note and the producer is taken like the he kept the notes and whenever he goes to cons and stuff, he reads them out to people. And like one of the notes was that if Spider Man lands on a rooftop, there has to they have to make sure that there are no pigeons that he could possibly hurt when he lands on the roof or something like that. It was ridiculous.
00:15:13
Speaker
Like they couldn't show like direct punches and all this kind of weird stuff. They had all these restrictions on the show. And that was all because of the backlash for Power Rangers. That was because of Power Rangers. I remember hearing that story. I didn't know that was because of Power Rangers. That is hilarious and ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny when you look at it now, but yeah, Power Rangers was a really controversial show when it came out.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's wow. But, you know, back to this movie. So, you know, that's, that's kind of the background for this. And it was, it was the fans who had actually gotten Warner Brothers to finally release the unedited version. It was two years after the release, they finally released this uncut version, which is now the basic one. And this is the first animated Batman film that got a PG-13 rating, actually, too. Really? Yeah. Wow.
00:16:08
Speaker
So that's kind of the background for this. And for anyone who hasn't watched it, right? You know, Ben and Beyond obviously takes place in the future. Bruce Wayne is like in his 70s or 80s at this point now in the show. Kevin Conroy is still voicing him, but he's basically Clint Eastwood, essentially what he is. You watch Unforgiven or you watch Gran Torino, that's basically Bruce Wayne in this universe. And,
00:16:37
Speaker
He's kind of retired, he's living basically in seclusion in Wayne Enterprises, in Wayne Manor, but then he gets this young kid named Terry McGinnis voiced by Will Friedl of Boy Meets World fame, ironically enough. That's who that is. Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's so weird. I had done a rewatch of Boy Meets World, I think a few years ago, and going from that to Batman Beyond, it's so weird seeing those two different roles.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, he ends up getting involved with Bruce and becomes the new Batman. And he uses this before, and before Bruce had retired when he was in his fifties, he had tried this experimental high-tech suit that has all these kinds of capabilities, like it has flight, it has like, you know, collapsible batarangs, you know, all sorts of different technology at it. Basically like a slightly low-tech Iron Man suit.
00:17:40
Speaker
And, you know, Terry starts picking, picks up the suit, starts using it. And Bruce is basically his man in the chair, to use the term from the new Spider-Man movies in the MCU. And he always basically monitoring him from the back cave. And they've also got Ace the Bat-Hound in it too. Which I thought was a nice little touch.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, I really don't have anything to add. I really dug this show when it came out. I really liked the villains, Ink especially. I thought she was really cool. And the villains were a little more complicated. They weren't just mustache twitting.
00:18:21
Speaker
It really carried out, it really, in my opinion, improved upon what they did with Batman, the animated series. Yeah, yeah. And I can see why they went with something like this, because I felt like the last season of Batman, the animated series was definitely one of the probably the weakest of that series. And they had felt, I think they were trying to lean, I think a big part of it was
00:18:48
Speaker
you know, stuff that the network one of them do or something like that because they lead much more heavily into the super villains as opposed to the early episodes when they'd have a mix between the super villains and the gangland elements and all that kind of stuff. I think the show definitely suffered when it moved over to, I think it was Kids WB at the time.
00:19:09
Speaker
But this one, this show gave them like a real shot in the arm and like really caused them to kind of stretch their creative muscles. And it was, it was great. It was, it was kind of like this, it was like this mix of Batman with some Spider-Man elements, but in this high tech world and it was really cool. And, you know, obviously everybody wonders anytime there's any sort of Batman media, right? The big question is, when's the Joker going to turn up? And,
00:19:37
Speaker
They had kind of sidestepped that for a while because instead of having the Joker, there's this gang in the universe called the Jokers who were basically style themselves after the Joker. And they're just kind of like these recurring antagonists. But then this movie comes out and it's the big return to the Joker. And he knows where Bruce, he knows that Bruce used to be Batman.
00:20:05
Speaker
And one of the things is, and we find out in this movie, the final fate of the Joker that Tim Drake killed him after Joker and Harley tried to brainwash him.
Terry McGinnis as a Detective
00:20:14
Speaker
And it basically caused Bruce to force everyone else around. And now all of a sudden he pops back up again. And Bruce kind of forbids Terry from being Batman to avoid him like having to deal with any of this. Yeah, then they had their fight. He leaves.
00:20:34
Speaker
you know, Terry leaves in the huff. Then the Joker shows up to the back cave. Yeah. With, you know, with the, what do you call the Joker gas, Joker toxin gas or whatever. I really thought it was cool. I didn't notice it until I think I watched it this morning. When Terry gets back, when he real, you know, when he's freaked out about, you know, he finds Bruce on the floor and all that. But when he gets in the room, it gets in a,
00:21:02
Speaker
gets in the Batcave, it's painted ha ha ha and that spray painted and all that stuff, which was reminiscent of the first episode when he runs after having a fight with his biological father. I guess we could get into that later, I guess, but get his biological father.
00:21:21
Speaker
and comes in and his dad's dead. So it's kind of like a, it was a nice callback to what happened in that first, in the first movie or in the first episode. Oh, wow. I didn't even realize that. Yeah, you're right. You're right. And I was like, and you know, and I think it made it more, you know, I've seen this movie quite a few times, but this time it made it more urgent when I noticed like, oh, that's dope. You know, of course, you know, he rescues him all that stuff.
00:21:49
Speaker
But I thought that was one of the really cool things that I liked that kind of nodded back to earlier episodes. Yeah, I never even realized that. That's a really good point. And that's awesome that they had that callback in there. And just like, you know, some of the imagery that you see in this movie is just so unsettling, like when
00:22:10
Speaker
Like when he, like the whole idea of, okay, he's going to brainwash Tim Drake and turn him into a little joker. It sounds, you know, comic booky and kind of ridiculous on its face. But when you see it in the movie and you know, Tim hops off that platform and just like the way they animated his face and it's like, you know, this tortured, laughing expression, it's really unsettling. It's really creepy actually. They did a, there's a couple, there's a couple of shots like that. There's one where,
00:22:38
Speaker
I think it's, I think it's at the end when Joker is trying to choke out Terry and he kind of laughs. And then, you know, I forget what he, you know, something threatening and as he chokes, anybody, then he starts laughing again. It was just, just the way they showed it from Terry's perspective. It was, yeah, there was Mark Hamels,
00:23:02
Speaker
Mark Hamill should always play Joker. Now, when I hear somebody else do it, I'm like, eh. I respect the skills, but you're not Mark Hamill. I don't know. I'm up for different interpretations of him, because I remember they had done, when they did the Birds of Prey TV show, and they had Mark Hamill dub over the Joker in that. And it was kind of, didn't quite work for me when they did it that way. I never saw that.
00:23:31
Speaker
Don't, it was terrible. It was in the, like after Smallville was such a big hit, WB decided to do a Batman TV show without Batman because they had managed to do a Superman TV show without Superman. So they had done Birds of Prey with, and God, it was so bad. It was like, it was just terrible.
00:23:56
Speaker
But yeah, and another, also with that unsettling imagery, like you were mentioning when Terry finds Bruce infected with the Joker toxin, like that was another really unsettling moment too. And just hearing like Conroy's laugh with that, that was really, really well done, I thought.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This is really good movie. I've watched it. It's like, man, this is really good. I can't believe I'm still like this. Yeah, but, you know, going back to what we mentioned before, like the detective story is surprisingly well done because sometimes in these detective, when someone tries to do a Batman detective story, sometimes they fall on the detective aspect. Like I was, I remember reading Hush when that came out, right? And,
00:24:46
Speaker
it's actually like the dumbest detective story ever because it's like the most obvious answer is the guy who, you know, suddenly popped the long lost character that suddenly pops up in Batman's life and turns out being the mystery villain, come on.
00:25:02
Speaker
Well, when they did Arkham Knight, the video game, when it's, you know, they show all these references to Jason Todd, you're like, well, obviously, I'm like, they're not going to make Arkham Knight Jason Todd. That's too obvious. And then that's exactly what they did. Wow. That sucks. Yeah.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, I remember hearing about Hush and like, yeah, it's so good. Did it like just reviews or whatever? I'm like, oh, and I read it. I was like, wait, what? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you get sucked into it at the time because it started off really good. But then when you're thinking about it, wait a minute, this actually doesn't make any sense. It was the same thing with Long Halloween had kind of that too, actually, when you go back and reread that story. Like the detective story is actually not that good at it. The mystery is not that well done.
00:25:47
Speaker
Actually, I have a question. I was going to bring this up later, but since we were talking about it now, you are an author and I thought I would ask you this. OK. OK, so the reveal at the so that I keep skipping all this other stuff, the reveal at the end when we find out that it's the chip that's planted on the back of Jason Todd. And, you know, we find out the transfer rate. Yeah, basically. Jason Jason Todd Spirit Tim Drake. Yeah, yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker
But when we find out what the deal is, every time I watch it, I'm like, did I miss something? Did they show? Did they talk about how Joker experimented on him? My question to you is this. Do you feel like it was a fair mystery? I think so. I think the idea that I think that was kind of like
00:26:47
Speaker
I think they kind of chickened out a little bit, though, at the end. So because I think there was. So I think the original idea is that they wanted it to be, you know, the whole idea of Tim Drake becoming the Joker, I think it it would have worked better if.
00:27:07
Speaker
it was not like the joker's consciousness inside Tim Drake. If it was actually like Tim Drake because of all this post-traumatic stress had just cracked any thought he was the joker and he kind of became the joker. I think that kind of worked a little bit better, but I think they kind of got scared about doing that for two, possibly for one of two reasons. One is maybe they,
00:27:32
Speaker
they were worried that the fans would have been angry because it's called Return of the Joker and you don't really have the Joker coming back. And two, I think they were worried about tarnishing Tim Drake's legacy within the canon type of thing. And so they wanted to have that kind of, so I think that's why they did that. And they had this whole idea of it's this microchip that contains the Joker's consciousness.
00:27:57
Speaker
That's kind of what I think is why they did it, but I do think that it does feel kind of like a cop-out when they get to that explanation. They do tie it up. I did look some of this up. I think it's the DCAU fandom wiki.
00:28:17
Speaker
they referenced later, I wanna say it's either, I think it's a Justice League Unlimited episode that he had stolen some of it from Project Cadmus. Problem is that episode came out in 2005.
00:28:34
Speaker
five years after. So, I mean, they buttoned it up. I was just curious, you know, as an author, did you feel like it was a fair mystery? Because like, the only part around that I couldn't wrap my head around was where did he get the genetics? Where did he get that from? Or where did he get this expertise? Because it wasn't talked about in the movie. Yeah, yeah, that part, the whole Joker conscious thing does feel kind of like a cop out. But the whole idea of Tim Drake being the Joker, I think that was a pretty well done mystery.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, I agree, I agree. It was just that last little bit. Yeah, that definitely feels like they're trying to cut. That felt like they didn't want to fully commit to the idea of Tim Drake becoming the Joker. So they wrote themselves this out. Which funny enough, ended up becoming kind of a plot point in the Arkham games too. Really? Yeah, you've never played the Arkham games?
00:29:29
Speaker
I'm not a video game guy. Well, do your kids have a PlayStation 4 or PlayStation? Okay. If you ever get the chance, the Arkham games are really, they're really cool.
00:29:44
Speaker
Arkham City was the second game and the Joker's dying and he tries to kind of like survive by infecting Batman with this virus. And then in the last game of the series, Arkham Knight, the Joker's consciousness is still existing in Batman. And so like, even though he's dead, his consciousness is still alive within Batman. And it's kind of like this idea of like the Joker slowly taking Batman over.
00:30:12
Speaker
That's pretty cool. It was a, it was a pretty, it was, you know, it had some issues in parts, but overall it was a pretty, it was a pretty cool game. And part of it too was, I think after Joker died in Arkham at the end of Arkham city, there was kind of like this expectation that they'd be moving away from the Joker. And then they kind of still found a way to bring him back in Arkham Knight. And it got a little bit, cause every single one of these games, there were total, there were four games in total. And every single one of them involved the Joker as like,
00:30:42
Speaker
kind of the primary antagonist. So it got a little bit old when it got to that point, but the basic idea behind it, and it got pretty unsettling at points. Even though you're not a gang, if you ever get the chance, they're definitely worth playing, or at least worth watching like a playthrough on YouTube or something like that. Oh, okay, cool. So what else should we talk about here? I really liked how Terry,
00:31:10
Speaker
kind of rose up to the detective spot in this because he basically, you know, normally in the show, like it's Bruce, even though he's, you know, he's the man in the chair, he's still doing most of the intellectual work. He's doing most of the heavy lifting. Terry's basically just like his instrument out in the womb. This movie, I like that Terry actually steps up himself and has to take it upon himself to solve the mystery.
00:31:34
Speaker
he becomes Batman in this. He really becomes Batman at the end of this, which I think is the last chronological, like chronologically, as far as the story is told, is the end of the DCAU, like the 10-verse. Like, so like- I think the epilogue episode of just- Oh, yeah, you're right. I think that's actually- You're right, you're right. But that's actually, and which, but you're right, as far as big events go,
00:32:03
Speaker
this is probably the last one. I'm not sure where it falls in continuity with the time travel episode of Justice League Unlimited though. Yeah, excited man. So, but, cause I know that came out, it depends on what happens cause in that Batman's part of the future Justice League. So I'm not, and they don't really, they don't mention any of that in this at all. So I'm not really sure where that falls in line with it. But basically like,
00:32:29
Speaker
It's one of the end points of the timbers, yeah. But yeah, I like how, you know, at the end, Bruce cosigns before you meet Tim, before he goes and sees Tim, Bruce cosigns, you know, he really puts him over and says, you know, you don't, the suit didn't make you, you made the suit, basically telling him like, you're Batman, bro. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:57
Speaker
I do have a small complaint. I want to make sure I get her name right. Where was Maxine Gibson? Oh, yeah, you're right. I didn't even really think about that. Yeah, she doesn't pop up at all
Voice Actor Contributions
00:33:11
Speaker
in this. So for anyone who's listening to this and wondering who he's talking about, Max was this supporting character who finds out about Terry and Batman end up becoming like an ally of theirs.
00:33:27
Speaker
I would assume that she would graduate into the woman in the chair. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. That's because they're, I completely forgot about that character. But you're right, they'd kind of been, they've been kind of setting her up for that aspect of it. That'd been cool. I think one of the first things, like if you call me, you're like, you will not call me Robin. But I love that character. And she's nowhere to be found. And they're like the best of buds. So.
00:33:55
Speaker
But yeah, she's basically kind of like the Alfred in this, essentially. But yeah, she doesn't pop up in this at all. She's not even mentioned. And she did pop up in, I think she popped up somewhere else. Oh, no, nevermind, I was looking at something else. Yeah, she's not been seen or mentioned in any of the follow-ups.
00:34:23
Speaker
So that's interesting. We never really find out what happens to her. I guess she was just out of town that day or something. Hopefully she wasn't in one of those buildings that day. What do you think of the whole, because one of the things that also kind of disappointed me though is that we never really hear much about what happened to Nightwing.
00:34:49
Speaker
because, you know, there's just that reference to out really. Yeah. Because we just get the reference that, you know, he left and he left Gotham to establish himself in another city, which we assume is Bloodhaven, like in the comics. But but we never see or hear from him at all in in the whole runtime of Ben and Beyond, not this movie, not even the not the three seasons of the TV show either.
00:35:13
Speaker
And that stinks. However, he is in, depending on how you feel about the comics, there is a Nightwing centric storyline in the Batman Beyond comics. Okay. Okay. I've never checked those out. So I'll have to, I'll have to take a look at that. Good. Then I won't spoil it for you. Okay. They do, they do do something with him in that. Um,
00:35:38
Speaker
But yeah, man, I, you know, I like I've always liked Nightwing more than Batman, to be honest. And so, you know, it would have been nice to see or hear what happened. Yeah, Nightwing's probably like, aside from Superman, Nightwing's probably my favorite DC character. So I'm definitely there with that. And can you imagine what kind of you know, with that with the with the Grayson spin, like the stories he'd probably tell about burst? Yeah, yeah. Um,
00:36:09
Speaker
What do you think of how they handled Tim Drake in this movie? It made a lot of sense.
00:36:21
Speaker
And I mean, he's what, 12, 13? When all that goes down. You know, I mean, I remember when I was 12 or 13, life was already, I was seventh grade probably. So yeah, life was already difficult coming in 12 or 13. Now add, you know, add a cape to it and being, you know,
00:36:44
Speaker
you know, tortured, like, yeah, the PTSD had to be just awful. I think they mentioned that he had there was a year of rehab he did with Dr. Tompkins before, you know, they let him go and let him go about his business or whatever. I like the way they handled it. Wasn't too ham fisted or anything. It does make me wonder too, like just timing wise, what had happened to him because in
00:37:13
Speaker
Mystery of the Batwoman, he's actually drawn as older in that movie than he is in this. So that's a little interesting continuity, Snafu. So it does make me wonder where that aspect falls next to. That was his last outing at Robin. I wonder how old he was really kind of supposed to be. And also what kind of happened to him in the interim? Because it says that, you know,
00:37:40
Speaker
Bruce forbade him from being Robin again after his therapy and then Tim left the soon after. So it makes you wonder like, you know, what did he do? Did he just run off or what was he up to since then?
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. Like, did he have money saved up? Did he just move? Did Bruce, you know, build a trust for him? He's like, all right, there you go. If you're gonna leave, you know what I mean? Like, that's a good question. Like, how did he survive? At least those initial, it's not like he's not resourceful. He'd be fine. It's just a matter of how to get started. Yeah, and it's like, you know, we talked about,
00:38:11
Speaker
masked the phantasm on a recent episode. And we had Adam on for that episode. And he was talking about, it's, you know, those types of questions, they're not really, they don't really matter too much for the story that's being told here. And I get that, but it is, but looking back in retrospect, it is those things that kind of stick with me afterwards. And you're doing a comic, you're doing a story about a comic book character and comic book fans are notoriously nitty-ditty. Yeah, yeah. So there is that.
00:38:39
Speaker
Some interesting voice actors in this too, in addition to the regular cast like Will Friedle, Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, but also Dean Stockwell, does the old Tim Drake in this. I'm not sure who Dean Stockwell is. You don't know Dean Stockwell? He was in, oh crap, what was that TV show? He was in Battlestar Galactica. The original Battlestar Galactica, I mean.
00:39:09
Speaker
Was he also in... Oh, he's been in a bunch. You'd recognize him if you saw him, basically. What are those guys? Oh, Quantum Leaf. He was Quantum Leaf. That was the name of the TV show. Oh, it was... Yes. Okay. Thank you.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so he does the old Tim Drake in this. Also, you got Arlene Sorkin back as Harley Quinn. But still, you also have Melissa Joan Hart is playing Dee Dee. Henry Rollins is the voice of Bonk. And also Michael Rosenbaum as Gould, deliberately doing a Christopher Walken impression.
00:39:56
Speaker
I love it, that's hilarious. Yeah. So you got, and Michael Rosenbaum, he did a bunch of voices for the DCAU back in the day, you know, before he went on to be Lex Luthor in Smallville, like he had done, Flash was the one he had done the most, but he had done some other ones here and there too. You forgot the most important voice actor, other than the, you know, the Trinity that we mentioned at the beginning, you forgot the most important.
00:40:26
Speaker
Frank Welker as Ace and Wolf. And if you don't know who Frank Welker is, he has been the voice of Scooby-Doo for the last 30 years or whatever.
00:40:40
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I got tickles like, so he just plays all the animals. Also had Rachel Lee Cook too, as Chelsea Cunningham was also in there too. So it's funny how they get some of these names that you recognize from other things to pop up in these DC projects. Right? Wait, Terri Gar was somebody in this too, wasn't she? I think she was the mom. Yeah, she was. Yeah, she was Terri's mom.
00:41:07
Speaker
So yeah, yeah, we said Henry Rollins. We said Henry Rollins. I think we got everyone. I think we got everyone. Yeah. Tara Strong too. She came back to do young back row as well. And Mark Hamill also did the voice of Jordan Price. That's another aspect that I, you know, rewatching it that I completely forgot about is that they set up Jordan Price as a really, they do a really good job with that red hair.
00:41:35
Speaker
Mm hmm. That was something I almost forgot to mention, but that was because I was pretty convinced that he was he was the Joker for the first time I watched it most for most of the runtime. And then when they they pivot to Tim Drake and they they tell you what it it all works really well, I think.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, I like how they, yeah, I like how they, it was such a good Red Harry, Mark Hamill played not only the Red Harry, he played the actual villain. They did that in another movie too, where, was it Mystery of the Batwomen? Maybe, yeah. Where the voice actor who played the main suspect was actually- Oh, no, no, no, I think that was, you're thinking of Master of the Phantasm. Master of the Phantasm, yes. They've done a similar bait and switch with, they make you think it's Andrea's father.
00:42:24
Speaker
And it's, you know, Stacy Keats voicing both the phantasm and the father. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah, I thought that that's a that's a nice little ploy. I like that. That's really cool. That was really cool. Friggin Bruce Trenton, he pulled the same trick on us twice. Right? How about Bruce Timm as the guard? Oh, really?
00:42:46
Speaker
You're right. Yeah. He's like, he's like literally the last name mentioned. And I think he's the, I think he actually has the first lines in the movie or one of the first lines in the movie. He's like in that very first, uh, scene when the jokers are breaking in, but it was like, Hey, I mean,
00:43:01
Speaker
Like you did all this work, you keep it, get yourself a line or two. You're nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything else you wanted to talk about with this movie? Cause I'm kind of, it's tough to, you know, movies like this, and we found we had the same problem when we talked about Master of the Phantasm. Was it, it's just such a good movie that you're kind of finding it hard to find other things to say about it. It's like, Hey, let's gush for, let's go. Yeah, yeah. Return the Joker for like an hour. Yeah.
00:43:28
Speaker
I'm trying to think. Let me see. I hate when I write my notes and then I can't remember. I didn't finish the thought and now I can't remember what I was writing.
00:43:46
Speaker
How would you? Ah, man. Because it was a writer question for you, but I can't remember what it was. It was like, how would you revise? Ah, shit. I don't know. I'll take a bit a minute or I'll message you just for my own entertainment. All right. Something about how would you revise? Maybe how would you, you know,
00:44:11
Speaker
handled the Joker, I don't know, I'm not sure if I would have handled things. The only thing I would have done differently is I would have had it be Tim Drake completely. And I wouldn't have had the Joker, that's the only thing I could think of that I would have done differently if I was writing this. I do have a question. Okay.
00:44:32
Speaker
What would you, since we don't have anything definitive other than what's in the comic book, which you'll find out if you ever read it, what would you do with the information that you have? What would you do at Nightwing? What would you have said to happen in that time period? Like what would you, what would, if you had an extra 15 minutes or whatever to stick him in the story somewhere, what would you have him do? You know, I,
00:44:57
Speaker
Because one of the cool things about Nightwing, about Dick Grayson, and I thought the Young Justice TV show handled this really good was when Wonder Woman is kind of grilling Batman about recruiting Dick into the crusade is so young. And Batman says, he says, you know, Robin had to find his parents killer and had to bring them to justice. And Wonder Woman says, why? So he could become you? And Batman says, no, because so he wouldn't become me.
00:45:27
Speaker
And that's kind of what I think about Nightwing. Cause Nightwing is like the, I can't think of another hero besides Superman who is as intricately tied and has so many close connections and is so well regarded in the DC universe than Dick Grayson, right? Cause he's had all these associations with the Titans, all these associations with the Bat family, like he's,
00:45:53
Speaker
He's Batman if Batman wasn't such a dick, basically. He's got all the same connections, but he's such a likable guy. He really is like this melding of Batman and Superman in a lot of ways. He has the best aspects of both those two characters.
00:46:14
Speaker
I'm not putting it in the context of this movie. I'm not sure how I would have handled that, but in the context of this continuity, I would have just had him, you know, establish a new name for himself as Nightwing and, you know, maybe even have replaced Batman in the Justice League or something like that. Like I would have had him kind of, I would have had him surpass Bruce in the hero community is kind of what, is kind of what I would have done with him. That'd been cool.
00:46:42
Speaker
But I'm not sure how you work that into, you know, this movie without it feeling like just tack on. That's true. That's true. It's a shame that it's a shame. They never, that's the one thing I guess they didn't, they never got to was him. I think they covered everybody else, didn't they? Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, they never tell us exactly what happened to Alfred. We just assume he died at some point.
00:47:03
Speaker
But yeah, the only other thing I would change about this is the whole backstory between Bruce and Barbara.
Critique of Bruce and Barbara's Relationship
00:47:13
Speaker
Cause I don't know what is, cause that whole, that whole idea of like, she had this little thing with Nightwing, but she was really attracted to Bruce. And then she ended up, heard Bruce have this relationship kind of like- That's not appropriate. Yeah, exactly. But it's like, Bruce Timm had this weird obsession
00:47:32
Speaker
with this Bruce Wayne Barbara Gordon relationship, which is why they have, have you seen the killing joke?
00:47:39
Speaker
I have, I don't think so, no, I haven't seen it. Okay, well, they had an extended opening in the killing joke because the actual story wasn't enough to fill the runtime of the movie. So they had this extra sequence with Batgirl and where basically her and Bruce hook up. Oh! Yeah, it's really bad, it's really bad. But yeah, Bruce went and early on in the TV show and Beyond,
00:48:08
Speaker
She makes her, Barbara, when Terry's asking her about what happened, she makes reference to the fact that her and Bruce were a couple briefly. And it's just, that's one thing I would completely excise out of this was that whole thing. Because I don't know what Bruce Timm's hangup is with that idea, but he's been obsessed with that idea for decades. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Do not ruin this for me.
00:48:33
Speaker
It's hard to watch Buffy and Angel, man. In retrospect, I mean, at least in that, you know, Angel's not exactly a good guy to begin with, so you could make some allowances there. But yeah, it is pretty creepy. But yeah, it's even creepier when you think about Batman doing that.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you got all the time in the world and you got all- You got a rabbit hole. You can dive down afterwards on recording this, my friend, and then you get kind of, you know, disgust yourself. Oh, God. You can look at that opening scene on YouTube, I bet, too. Literally rooftop sex with Batman and Batgirl. I'm sorry, what? Rooftop sex with Batman and Batgirl. That's the opening scene.
00:49:25
Speaker
Rooftop sex. I did not stutter, yeah. Rooftop sex. I stuttered because I couldn't believe what I just heard. It's terrible. It's utterly awful. Wow. So when we do an ad on superhero cinema. Oh, Jesus. I've been dreading what someone, you know, suggests doing Killing Joke because that's not, it's not a really good story to begin with. And then you add it. And somehow they took a controversial story and somehow managed and in
00:49:52
Speaker
and they were trying to make it better and they ended up making it so much worse, so much worse. Wow, so sad. Yeah, yeah, it's really bad, all right. Okay, so yeah, watch this movie instead of watching Killing Joke, basically. Sounds like it. Anyway, Deming, anything else you wanna mention about this? I think we covered everything that we're gonna say about it.
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think I covered everything in my notes. I mean, I guess the only other thing to mention is probably just kind of the art side of things and the Batman Beyond costume, right? This is such a solid design and such a solid updating of the look because it doesn't have the cape. And that was something that kind of threw me off when they had first announced this show was
00:50:43
Speaker
Batman without a cape. It seems almost sacrilegious, but they managed to use it. It works really well in the show. What about you? What do you think about this design and how they used it? Oh, it fit. Again, I don't have the, you know, it would be everything was really sleek and streamlined in the show, like the cars and the way they designed everything else. So why wouldn't Batman?
00:51:09
Speaker
You know, eventually Bruce's cape is gonna get caught in some he's like, man, I gotta get rid of this thing. But any any finally you know he finally got jet boots so he can freakin fly. You know what I mean like those are those are things that I always thought about his kids like why does he just make something they can fly and of course, I wasn't clued in on Iron Man at the time, you know.
00:51:29
Speaker
I really liked it, you know, he had, you know, super strength, you know, he had the thing is, it was a stronger armor. He could turn invisible. I really dug it. I really dug it. Yeah, yeah, it was a cool updating of the suit. Like, I don't want Bruce to have that kind of tech in the, I think they kind of over rely on it, but it works really well for Terry in the context of this series.
00:51:51
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, Bruce Bruce would it would be it's kind of like giving Bucky the captain Captain America's shield in the in the MCU. It's like it's like putting a hat on a hat. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Terry Terry is a 17 year old boy. He needs this stuff.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the show did a really good job of that, taking it back to the original episode of the show, because you see Bruce using the Beyond suits in the opening, and it just feels so out of place, like, because it's on the Bruce Wayne character model, and it just feels very out of place when he wears it. And then when Terry puts it on, it's like, oh, yeah, this is much better.
00:52:34
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, it does look weird. It really does. Like, it's like, shouldn't you have a cape and some shorter ears or something? We'll also try that home because they did the same thing in taking it back to the Arkham games. In Arkham City, they have a Batman Beyond skin, like different outfits that you can put on the you can put
00:52:54
Speaker
Batman in different outfits, different costumes. And one of them is the Batman Beyond suit, but it's still basically the same Batman character model, but with the Batman Beyond suit. And it does look out of place in that too. That's crazy. That's crazy. And yeah, I don't think I have anything to add on that one.
00:53:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was a good show. I liked, and I liked, they brought Arlie back at the end too. Nice little, so we find out that she, because you have these two characters, these twins, Dee Dee, is their, you know, Deidre and something else, Delilah or something like that.
00:53:30
Speaker
Arlene Sorkin is voicing both of them. They very much fill the Harley Quinn role. And then you find out at the end of the movie when they're arrested and they're imprisoned, and then their grandmother comes to bail them out, and it's Harley Quinn. I think Mary Joan Hart did the- Oh, sorry, you're right. Yeah, Melissa Joan Hart did DD. Melissa Joan Hart, thank you. Yeah. The original Harley Quinn actress played Granny, Nana Harley. That's what they called her, Nana Harley.
00:53:59
Speaker
I also liked the resolution of the Bruce Timm dynamic at the end when he goes to, he goes to, because that's been one of the recurring themes throughout this whole Batman Beyond show is Bruce's inability to own up to his shit. And, you know, this is like kind of the first time that we really see him do that.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That was, again, nice. This was, yeah, this, I should have picked something. I should have picked something that sucked so we could have cracked about an hour and a half. That's okay. Well, what, I think when we originally talked about you coming on the show, you threatened to do spawn so we can do that. Is that, is that, that's the new low? Is that the new low? No, no, I don't think that's not as bad as steel. I think steel is,
00:54:53
Speaker
The new low you haven't done, I guess it should be more specific. Yeah, the new low I haven't done is probably spawn, I think, yeah. Ooh, I'm going to write that down. Thank you, invite me back, I'm coming to spawn.
00:55:07
Speaker
I'd actually just finished reading the compendium, which has like the first 50 issues of spawn. So I'd actually just finished reading that. All right, on top of mind. Yeah, so yeah, it's very much top of mind right now. Anyway, Daman, why don't you tell me what they can find you?
00:55:25
Speaker
You can find me on all the social medias. Well, not all of them but Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I'm most active on Twitter. At demand does all one word. All those will be at demand does.
00:55:43
Speaker
And you can also check out I do have a podcast or two that I'm on the mind does the six questions, where I interview creatives and ask them the same six questions and we would go stories about their highs and lows and learn something about the creative process and help each other out.
00:56:00
Speaker
And then disputed we actually as we were as we're recording this this will be tomorrow but it's already be out by the time you hear it. We're doing a tournament, we're doing a 16 person tournament of.
00:56:16
Speaker
the 16 of some of the greatest fighters in cinema. So we've got like your Jack Reachers, we've got Kato from Green Hornet, we've got Beatrix Kiddo, I think Martin Riggs is in it. And we've stacked them up into a tournament and what we're gonna do is debate them down until we have one final winner. So that'll be going on for the next few months. So that's always fun. Tune in for that one, that'll be a blast.
00:56:45
Speaker
And also about the Demond Does podcast, if anyone missed it the first time around, you did a really cool interview when you had Derek on, you know, back in the passing. So definitely look that one up because that was a really good episode. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's one of my personal favorites. Yeah. All right. Demond, thanks so much for coming back again. It was great having you on. Good to have you come back again, and we'll do spawn next time. And then we'll have more to talk about because we'll have more to rant about.
00:57:12
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you. All right. So that does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephiles. Supercinemapod is where you can find us on Twitter and Instagram and superherocinephiles.com is our website. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
00:57:27
Speaker
You have been listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. Join our Facebook group by searching for Superhero Cinephiles, where you can interact with us and other superhero fans. If you'd like to support the show, you can become a regular supporter at Patreon or make a one-time donation through PayPal, both of which can be found at our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com.
00:57:50
Speaker
If you buy or rent any movies through the Amazon links at our site, it helps support the show. Please be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. And as always,
00:58:20
Speaker
Good night. Good evening. God bless.