Hey readers! Check out this video I found from the Bat-blog. The voice of Batman for a generation talked to a small crowd at C2E2 and one audience member asked what he though of Christian Bale’s Batman voice. While Conroy did praise Bale for being an excellent actor, he said he thought Bale was “stirred wrong”.
While I understand Conroy’s borderline diss, I see where he’s coming from, especially some scenes in The Dark Knight. Though it’s a different interpretation of Batman, so I think some leniency should be allowed.
So what do you think, readers?
April 19th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Conroy’s far from alone in this opinion. The primary complaint of Bale’s otherwise excellent performance was the ridiculous voice he affected as Batman. And that was even worse in The Dark Knight than it was in Batman Begins.
April 19th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Conroy was awesome in the original Batman series when he switched from Bruce to Batman. Later on, they stopped showing Bruce as much, so there wasn’t much switching going on, but I remember marveling at how well Conroy switched between the two personalities. Bale would do well to take some lessons from him.
April 19th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Dark Knight would have been so much better without Batman and his plastic sixpack.
Batman works in comics only.
The more you’re trying to ground him in reality (Nolan) the more ludicrous the whole concept becomes.
April 19th, 2010 at 11:52 am
You’ll be able to see more of the panel soon at Panelsonpages.com, since we hosted it.
And BTW, that was former Wizard “Magic Words” guru Chris Ward who asked the question.
April 19th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Bale sounded like a young Batman would. Nothing else was perfect early on, so the voice would sound like he was trying too hard. But no one is going to say anything to a man who carries that many bat shuriken.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Conroy’s right on. I’ve had many problems with Nowlan’s take on Batman, but Batman’s inane “growly monster voice” was one of the big ones. I could see possibly doing it while ambushing/ass-kicking criminals, but when meeting with Jim Gordon? Makes him come off as truly nuts…which might be Nowlan’s point, for all I know.
April 19th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
what a silly debate. who cares! it’s great that we’re in a place to argue about two quality media products (B’man: TAM and TDK)for one of fiction’s most iconic characters. Winners all around!
Stop the hate and celebrate!
April 20th, 2010 at 7:07 am
Personally, the voice does not bother me and to ground it in the ‘real world’ it makes absolute sense.
Bruce Wayne is a very public figure. People would recognize that his and Batman’s voice are one in the same. So, without a voice changer in front of his face (that would require a full on mask), BW/BM changing his voice for the two different persona’s is an absolute necessity, whether you like the voice or not.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Christian Bale’s Bat-Voice was my least favourite part of his performance. It just sounds like a guy recovering from laryngitis. I was praying that Lucius Fox would kit him out with an electronic voice changer when he got that new armour. Mr Conroy is spot on and he’d know really, being a professional voice actor.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
i agree his voice was the worst part of his performance. kevin was right.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Was this during the PoP! (Panels on Pages) panel at C2E2?
April 27th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Beards of Prey has an article up right now in defense of Bale’s “growly monster voice.”
http://www.beardsofprey.com