Batman: The Killing Joke - The Book Cut

Perfect. This cut stays true the comic book. I agree with greenman, Gordon's trial should be included in the cut while not in the comics, it adds depth to the story. Good job! Killing Joke, Dark Knight Returns and The Long Halloween are my top three Batman stories. I hope DC/WB makes a Long Halloween version.

Absolutely seamless (outside of nitpicking). This should have been an extra on the Blu-ray release. I've read The Killing Joke years ago and watched The Killing Joke last year. I'd recommend people watch this version before they watch the official release as there is no distracting Batgirl love story sub-plot.

A few issues/recommendations though:
1. The compression could be improved.
2. I think Gordon's trial in front of the carnies should be included. It's not in the original book, but it adds a glimpse of Gordon's mental state, makes a statement on the similarities between Batman and the Joker, and opens the question of what Gordon's sense of justice is after experiencing his tragedy (which is later resolved).
3. I HIGHLY recommend removing the added "Perhaps, you'll kill me, perhaps I'll kill you" voice-over when Batman arrives at the carnival as this fan-edit is now a short film and the audience doesn't need to be reminded this was said only 20 minutes before. I also found the audio editing of this voice-over to be distracting.
4. It would be nice if there was a way to edit the ending to show Batman ambiguously killing the Joker as many fans interpret this as the true ending from the comic. It could possibly be done by doing a messy fade to black towards the center and a sound effect of a neck cracking as the two are laughing.

As a die-hard Comic-fan. Seeing the non-edited Killing Joke, felt all wrong. There was so much stuff added which ruined the whole thing.

The Book Cut fixes a lot overall. It cuts out unnecessary fillers. Which results in a faster pacing, better narrative and overall more enjoyment.
It also adds a nice atmosphere with the very well done rain.

If you want to see The Killing Joke, watch this version it stays very very close to the Masterpiece that is the original.

Fantastic improvement from original release. This keeps the tighter pace of the comic book, and the emotional impact is all the greater for it. The added rain effect is obviously added, but other than that, no real problems at all.

I didn't mind the idea of the added Barbara story, but the execution ended up holding the original release back. This is a superior viewing alternative.

When The Killing Joke was announced by Bruce Timm himself I was skeptical. It's a comic that would be very hard to translate into a film because of various things. One was how short it was, there's no real set up in the book, you're already supposed to know about the characters and their relationships. The other was Bollard's art which is wonderful and very expressive and stunning. So when I saw the film in a theatre screening it was clear Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett(the two made BTAS and many other animated gems), and Brian Azzarello screwed it up in so many ways. Most of what was added hurt Barbara's character and just straight up ruined the movie with the epilogue. The epilogue is half the movie and is very loosely related to TKJ story. The movie even "starts" again with TKJ story! The Book Cut mercy kills that awful epilogue and trims all the unnecessary added things to TKJ that ultimately hurt the movie. It's all made to be closer to the comic, and for the most part it succeeds in making a better movie.





Batman's visit is edited better, and it makes for a better starting point than the weak corpses scene. The stupid unnecessary scene where Barbara is jogging and calls Gordon is also gone! This scene was straight up filler and it had the camera ogle Barbaras butt! These changes, and other trimmed scenes, make for a tighter and better movie.


Batman looking for Barbara is cut into a montage with music over it, which is very similar to how I imagined it'd be if the source material was adapted. I do have mixed feelings on it though. I felt the montage starts abruptly, and that the music somehow doesn't really start off right. Inserting the opening doors is a good call, but there are too many inserts so it becomes repetitive, specially in the rooftop part.The screeching sound of the doors might also be cut off too fast, so this could use a bit more work in order to have. Batman seems to say a whole sentences to the mob boss, but since there's only music and no dialogue, it drags out the whole montage Cutting out the really dumb prostitue scene dialogue was great because the original movie kinda doubles down to suggest joker definitely raped Barbara. Overall a tighter montage with little lip movement and few door inserts would make it flow better.


I would've preferred it if batman's laugh went on longer because now I felt the movie ends a bit too fast. There's a certain vibe that's lost with the abrupt laugh.


The opening and final scene have a new rain effect that makes for better atmosphere, unfortunately it also creates the biggest problems. There are certain angles that don't quite line up with the rain drop direction, like the first and last puddle shots, which make it apparent it's an added effect. Unfortunately the effect and a blotchy image due to compression also makes it very hard to see the rain actually hitting the ground like in the book. I think this is the biggest fault of The Book Cut.


Having the rain keep going in the end when it cuts to black screams of added rain effect but I'm not too bothered by it (The characters don't seem to be hit by the rain drops, but this is the original animators fault, it's just more apparent with the effect). The batman monologue by the end sounds a bit weird to me with the echo, but it's good that the monologue was added in. There are also a few small white line glitches at the bottom of the screen that pop out like three times throughout the movie. These are few small nitpicks that don't work against the overall experience, just thought it was worth pointing out


Overall this cut is superior than the original and should definitely be watched by everyone who thought the movie was weak and wants something closer to the comic book masterpiece.