The Joker Blogs

Here's the place for discussing music, plays, YouTube videos, and any other media that doesn't quite fit in the other sections of Harlequin Theatre.
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bookworm
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The Joker Blogs

Post by bookworm »

I stumbled across this YouTube series several years ago and even though I was not familiar with the Batman movies at the time I went ahead and watched it because it looked interesting. Despite not fully understanding everything about it I was still very impressed, I could tell there was some real talent behind it.
After I finally saw The Dark Knight and could place this in context I watched through it again, and I now appreciate it even more. It's very clever.

It takes place after The Dark Knight, when the Joker is transferred to Arkham Asylum.
It's done entirely in found footage format, which I'm usually not a fan of, but this works for me because it's not just from a single camera, it's done in a variety of ways. It starts out as recordings from Arkham setting up the situation, then when the story really gets going it's the Joker making his own videos. If you remember that video clip from Joker the news played in TDK, it's directly modeled after that.
The clever thing is that it breaks the fourth wall, actually just removes it, by acknowledging that these are a series of videos on YouTube and having the premise that Joker is actually uploading them himself, so you're actually watching the story as it unfolds.
And what's neat is it's not just further exploits of the Joker, what the story here actually is is the origin of Harley Quinn, showing why she gets drawn to him in this imagining of the universe.

The production value is impressive. It doesn't look like too much at the beginning when they're just getting the series going, but once the story starts developing and moves outside of the asylum the creativity really shows. It's quite a ride following everything that unfolds and gradually realizing how things are set up and then eventually come together. The guy does a pretty good impression of the DK Joker too, his speech patterns and mannerisms.

So if you want some additional Gotham world building check it out. Pretty professionally done and impressively complex for just being fanmade.
Do note that it's dark at times, so best for mature audiences like the movie is.
It's best to watch the videos all in one viewing so you can follow the progression without forgetting details that come up along the way, so to make sure you have enough time for it approach it as a movie. That's really what it is, at a roughly two and a half hour runtime, a fan movie that just happens to be cut into segments due to how it's presented. I've put them all into a playlist for easy sequential viewing. There's also one for some bonus videos they've made.


There is also a second series in the process of coming out right now. (Though it seems to have hit some production problems because it was supposed to have all been released by some time ago.) It continues the story where the first series left off, but it is very different. It's not all about the Joker, there are now multiple characters and storylines at play, and it's not exclusively found footage there are scenes of regular camerawork. So it doesn't have the same premise of being aware that it's being watched like the first did, this one is like a regular movie.
A miniseries called Further Evidence was put out to bridge the gap between the two series, it provides further insight into some happenings in series one and a look at where the characters have ended up in the aftermath to set the motivations for the next one.
I haven't watched all of this series yet so I can't say if I would recommend it as much as the original series, in regard to either production quality or content, but for the sake of completion if you really like the work of these guys and want to check out the rest I'll link to that too.
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