Return of the Joker: A Joke in Itself

Written by Zelda

                Note beforehand to readers: this rant's going to focus mainly on a recent strait-to-video movie release titled "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker". If you haven't seen it, go do so, because it's a great film. And you'll need the gory details in order to understand this rant in its entirety. Have fun!

                Alright, now onto the main thing. What child of the 80s didn't thrill to the adventures of the live action Batman show when we were kids? Sure, the theme song was corny, the costumes were ridiculous,  and those "Holy ____ Batman!" taglines were overused, but we still love the show with a warm nostalgia to this day. If you're not a child of the 80s, my condolences. Just kidding of course, you didn't miss out on the Batman action for very long! In 1991, FOX began airing a show called Batman: The Animated Series. This show was a leap forward in superhero cartoons, taking the dark Gotham streets that comic readers had loved for decades, and putting them on the TV screen. Over the years, the show progressed, but remained a mainstay of cartoonage on network TV. There was Batman and Robin, and after the show had moved to the WB network, the Batman/Superman Adventures. The things that made the shows truly amazing and continuous from series to series, is that they retained the same core staff of writers, producers, and animators. The better part of a decade's time that they had, allowed the characters to be developed to an enormous degree. Even if you'd never picked up a Batman comic (like me), you came to know a little piece of the DC universe like the back of your hand.

Okay, history lesson over, that's all the background you'll really need. In 1999, the WB decided to drop the rights to both Batman and Superman, which were picked up by Cartoon Network. The WB chose to take on a new Batman show in order to continue the line, but this show was unlike anything that had ever been put on TV before. Batman Beyond was, and still is, dark and violent. A recent article in the New York Times hailed it (or blasted it, whichever you prefer) for having the most explicit fight scenes out of any cartoon on network TV. It even beat out Dragonball Z for violence, and that says a lot.

So it's violent, you get my point. Any of you who read my last rant know that I welcome this kind of a thing. But even those who are opposed to such displays are very happy with the show from a plot standpoint. Because Batman Beyond is SUPPOSED to be that way. Bruce Wayne has one foot and a cane in the grave, the new Batman has his father's murder to drive him, and there's a 40 year gap of time in between Batman/Superman and Batman Beyond to fill with the tragic downfalls of our favorite old characters. Batman Beyond's first feature-length movie, Return of the Joker did just that, telling the wrenching tale of how the death of one of the Bat-team's greatest enemies could haunt them all to the present day.

Okay, sounds all well and good, doesn't it? What's my beef? I'll tell you just what it is. Just under a month before the movie's scheduled release, Return of the Joker (ROTJ from now on) was pulled back into the studios to be EDITED for violent content. The network execs got scared when they watched the screening, especially in the wake of the Littleton, CO tragedy. So, they ordered the writers to clean the film up. You already know my views on censorship in cartoons, like I said before. But as you'll see, this was more than cleaning up a few lines, blurring a picture or two, or cutting a scene.

My kudos go to the movie's writers, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, who handled the demand like a couple of pros. The two men, that have so finely crafted the animated Batman universe, did an excellent job of toning things down, and still kept the movie's original message clear. ROTJ will still scare the living daylights out of some kids, not because it's like The Blair Witch Project or something, but because stuff in there is just plain CREEPY. The fight scenes are REAL. The heartache and suffering is REAL. It's not something you would expect from a cartoon, and a strait-to-video one at that. ROTJ not only deserves a release in its original uncut form, but it deserved a showing in theaters. This is NOT something for you happy-go-lucky Pokemon addicts.

My problem with the cuts is just that though, they don't detract from the show's undertone of violence and angst. So what do they do? They're just plain annoying. Here's a sample of the 50+ cuts and changes made to the movie's scenes and dialog:

                - All blood digitally removed

                - All references to the word 'kill' removed, lines using them re-recorded.

                - The Joker is not killed by a gunshot from an insane Robin, but instead slips in a puddle of water and electrocutes himself.

                - Batman using a knife to free himself from bindings digitally removed.

                - Joker slashing Batman with another knife cut. (The resulting stab wound in the leg is the result of Wayne's limp in the show, a key continuity point now missing)

                - Seatbelts digitally added to characters during two scenes in cars.

                - A dog biting a villain in the arm cut.

These are just some of the many pointless cuts that were made to the film. Is a bloody lip or two going to scare a kid? Nope. The alternate death of the Joker is the biggest punch for me. This has a profound effect on the meaning of the movie, considering the bad history the entire Bat-team has had with firearms, and the way that the Joker is flat-out murdered by Tim Drake helps to explain his painful memories as the movie continues on. The digitally-removed blood is also pointless, considering that bloody lips are often shown when Batman Beyond is aired on TV! Now I admit, the censors may have had a reason to complain with some scenes.  There is one scene cut in which little Tim is tortured by the Joker using electric shock tongs, and that's not a pleasant thing to have to see. But that's not my point.

The point is that these cuts and revisions were meaningless, in total, to the overall effect of the film. The only reason they were put in there is to lower the film from an original PG rating to a G rating. That's what the WB execs were so scared about. A PG rating. Heaven forbid. I give a big thumbs-up to Disney for releasing Dinosaur, a PG film, into theatres. The movie was a huge success, I'm personally a big fan of most dinosaur movies myself, so I loved it too. But the WB is scared of a strait-to-video movie having a PG rating. It's hard to explain a move like they made, especially when Batman Beyond is NOT targeted to an audience of young kids. The show is rated Y-7 on TV, but in actuality its largest fanbase consists of teenagers and young adults. They can handle a PG movie, since most of them are old enough for a PG-13.

It's obvious that the WB either didn't know that fact, or decided to ignore it in the making of ROTJ. The end result is a bunch of people who are HOPPING mad about their cowardice. Go visit any Batman Beyond site, I dare ya, and they'll have a rant up that is just like mine. It's just annoying! It's just a distraction! And the fact that the WB will ignore popular demand and most likely not release an uncut version of ROTJ means that I'll have to shell out some big bucks for a crappy bootleg copy of either the version that was released in Japan, or one of the few screening tapes that have circulated to the privileged few. Wonderful, I can't wait.

Thanks to the WB for another demonstration of how hollow animation can be these days. I just hope they don't pull any more of this absolute crap when the next Batman Beyond movie comes out. Maybe the execs. will have actually learned their lesson by then.