I'm a supporter of Fan Films

Fans making their own non-profit works based on what they love.

I first learned of the idea via Batman.  Stumbling upon Dead End and Death of Batman via IMDB back when Batman Begins wasn't quite out yet.  A good Website for these classic Batman Fan Films would be BatmanFanFilms.com it still exists but it's forum seems basically dead.  I like films like Patient J and Law & Order Gotham.

That website doesn't include a lot of the more recent YouTube projects.  Like best of all The Joker Blogs.  Which seemed dead but just made a comeback.

But going outside Batman, last year I really loved Sailor Moon The Movie.  It's a American set Adaptation of the first Season of the old Anime.  It uses the old DiC dub names but avoids it's most problematic plot changes (Zoscite and Kunzite are both Male and a couple).  And does a few creative new things.

Only nitpick is I would switch the names of the characters called Jadite and Nephrite, and replace the name Jay with Max.

Last one I want to comment on here is OtaKing's TIE Fighter.  He's a YouTuber obsessed with 80s OVAs and their shading, and wanted to animate a Star Wars project in that style.

My opinion on the video is it looks great, awesome in fact.  The decision to have no dialogue is fine, doesn't suit my preferences but is a valid artistic choice.  And the Sound Effects are good, they sound like right out of a Star Wars film.

But what bugs me is the Music.  He uses a random song instead of the Williams Score, or something evocative of it.  Maybe he wanted it to be like 80s OVA Music, but then he shouldn't make his project a Star Wars one.  Much of what I love about Star Wars is it's Music.  And if animators in Japan in the 80s got the chance to do a legit Star Wars project, they would have wanted to use to that Music.

Lex Luthor and The Joker

Since people love to contrast Batman and Superman so much (I could rant on that someday) in my view that parallelism/contrast doesn't entirely work without contrasting Luthor and The Joker also.  Because each of them is like every good Arch-nemesis should be the Antithesis to to the Heroes they oppose.

Batman embodies Order while The Joker embodies Chaos.  Superman embodies Selflessness while Lex Luthor embodies Selfishness.  There was a time when these contrasts were defined more superficially.  Superman is Brawn while Luthor is Brains.  Batman is good disguised as something scary, while Joker is evil disguised as something that delights children.  But nowadays no one wants Superman to be stupid and few want Lex to be a weakling (which is the complaint about Eisenberg not being Intimidating, but I'm all for it).  And Clowns are now universally considered scary in any context.

So if Batman and Superman are somewhat opposite kinds of heroes, and Joker and Luthor are their total opposites.  Logic dictates they should be in some way be opposite kinds of villains.

I prefer to define Superman as the Rebel Seigel and Shuster wrote rather then the stupid Frank Miller perception (Chaotic Good rather then Lawful Good).  The Joker obviously is Chaotic Evil, he's become the definition of it.

Lex Luthor I have always felt works as an evil counter part to Batman better then any of the failed Batman characters created for that intent.  Both are about Order in a sense.  Batman has the best rouges gallery over all, but not a good Evil Counterpart, The Joker is a perfect antithesis, and many others have some parallels.  But the ones made to be Batman if he were Evil (like Zoom is for Flash and Sinestro is for Hal, and the Phantom Zone villains for Superman) tend to flop.

I read this article on The Joker
https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/sexualized-saturdays-the-joker/

And I hate it.  The Joker is not about control, that is Lex Luthor.  The Joker is about making other people lose control (Batman first and foremost but he will target others from time to time).  That's his blatant objective in both The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight.  Seeing someone who says they've read TKJ so monumentally misunderstanding it really annoys me.

Also The Joker is Asexual in my opinion, perhaps Homoromantic in relation to Batman but completely without any sex drive.  So no he did not rape or sexually assault Barbara Gordon in TKJ.

Lex Luthor however is a very sexual "Alpha-Male", the early CEO Lex who was very unattractive was the embodiment of why we have sexual harassment laws, when he later morphs into being more attractive he's more of a womanizer, which is an unfortunate implication since attractive people can be rapists too.  And slash shipping Lex and Clark on Smallville works very well.

The Batman villain who is a Sadist is Crane/The Scarecrow, but he gets off on psychological torture rather then physical torture, which is what Cillian Murphy captured perfectly in Batman Begins.  His parallel to Batman is that both use Fear as a weapon, one for good and one for evil.

Writers haven't put the same thought into how to contrast Luthor and The Joker they have into Batman and Superman.  Many Comic stories using both wind up seeming randomly lame.  However the World's Finest story-line on Superman The Animated Series did a decent Job.  I also enjoy their moment in Infinite Crisis, and I rather like what The Joker Blogs is doing.

What about the Pre-Crisis Lex?  Isn't he less Lawful and more Chaotic?  Maybe, but he's still about power and control, in that era his methods may have seemed more similar to some incarnations of The Joker, but the goals were still different.  As far as doing the Pre-Crisis Lex in a more developed way I enjoyed the Allstar Superman animated movie.  How he was in official continuity between losing the Presidency and Infinite Crisis also worked well.

Here is one interesting article on them that I mostly agree with
http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-188-lex-luthor-the-joker/

One finale important difference, that the article I just linked to didn't get.  The Joker has wanted to kill Batman in some stories but I prefer The Joker to never want Batman dead, he's more interested in making Batman break then killing him.  While Lex may want Superman alive at some times but ultimately his goal to be the one who kills Superman, which is why he was PISSED OFF at Doomsday.

I was mentioned in the Gotham Podcast

http://www.podasterynetwork.com/2015/02/19/1x16-the-blind-fortune-teller/

I am quite glad they enjoyed my Emily Fields suggestion.  May or may not have realized I meant it partly as a reference to how Talia has a similar look.

There was another thing latter they replied to.  I made other comments in Chat, many were just repeating what I said in my last Gotham post on this blog.

One was something I expanded on in a comment on a DC TV Talk post.

I think it’s possible that Gotham’s Barbara is a merger of Barbara and Kate Kane and that she’ll become Batwoman

The last name they’ve given her is similar. And she has the Romantic link to Renee Montoya.

Plus is thematically works since she’s the mother of Batgirl

What made Jerome work as a good possible Joker to me is the emphasize on how freaked out Tompkins was by him.   I want The Joker to be a force that brings out the worst in others around him.
"When villains want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories"

The Joker needs to come off as an unfathomable evil even to people who deal with horrible psychopaths all the time.  And sometimes spread madness like a plague.  That's why I love about The Joker Blogs.

I want to see Montoya be a good Detective and ally to Gordon.

I honestly don't like her being The Question.  I feel like Comics sometimes take their crossoverness to far.  Someone introduced as a Batman side character becoming a successor to a character that was originally a completely different company is really lame to me.  I'm a fan of Montoya because of who she was before Infinite Crisis.  If they want to homage her Question future just have her meet Vic Sage.

I want Barbara to have marry Gordon and have Barbara II before the end of Season 2.  I don't want them putting that off forever.  Then have and Gordon get divorced.  Then have her become Batwoman like I suggested.

Characters I want to see on Gotham

First of all, I can't believe I didn't think of this as soon as the premise was announced, Dr. Leslie Tompkins.  She is important to Bruce's childhood.

Since the reopening of Arkham Asylum is gonna be a thing, we ought to see Jeremiah Arkham.

I want Barbara 1 to give have given birth to Barbara 2 by the end of Season 2.  We know that marriage is destined to fail and I don't want it dragged out to much.  I could care less however about the Son Gordon has.

Thomas Elliot and Roman Sionis have both been villains implied to be childhood friends or family friends of Bruce/The Waynes.  Thing about Elliot is I don't like the comic character that much, but I love The Joker Blogs re-imagining of him.  As unlikely as it may be, I'd love to see that version of the character as a teenager.

I'd like Selina to make friends with Holly Robinson soon, I was hoping the Blond Orphan in the second episode would be her, but that seems unlikely now.

I also feel like the overlooked really early pre Batman#1 Batman villians would be interesting choices.  Hugo Strange is the most well known of those.  Dr.Death might seem like the same thing as Strange to some, but I'd make Strange like a Moriarty or Cornelius Kramm figure, and Dr.Death a more typical mad Scientist.

But I personally would be most interested in seeing The Monk (ReImagined a few times since.).  He'd be perfect for a Halloween episode, create a Vampire Panic in Gotham, but it turns out to be a naturally explained in the end.....  or is it?