Regarding voice actors, anyone who ISN’T Kevin Conroy will get slammed by some fans. But each animated series or movie is its own project and needs its own style and vibe… which is why I’m all for switching the voice actors up.

An idea: Blog@ should do a countdown of the best DC Universe straight to video animated movies so far. I was surprised by how good UNDER THE RED HOOD was… seemed like a standard action movie but wound up being a really thoughtful examination of pragmatic pessimism versus idealistic optimism in the world of criminal justice, as well as loyalty and family. The animation and voice acting were great, too.

Oh, that’s fine… For me, the lack of Conroy is a major strike against it though. I don’t quite agree with the Gotham Knights example, because Year One is a different animal from the vignette where Bruce was, what, a teenager? I forget how old he was supposed to be in that one, but he sounded like he was maybe 12? I don’t think he was supposed to be that young, but that’s how he sounded.

That was not good work by Conroy, I agree, but that’s not what we’d get with Year One. He was great, as usual, in the others. Including the one where Bruce, as a young man is traveling the world. That vignette, or perhaps Mask of the Phantasm might actually be a better comparison for how Conroy would sound in Year One.

Regardless, the guy they got for this Year One movie? Yeah, he’s not Batman (or Bruce Wayne) to me. I gotta pass. Besides, the typical DCAU approach of taking a great story and cramming into a 70-80 minute feature just isn’t working most of the time. If I see it, it’ll be a library loaner.

To my ears—he’s the BEST! Love the voice!

Plus others like Greenwood, Bader, Romano etc. are all great in my opinion and are just as valid, Bader especially and I look forward to hearing new voices again in the future. All of which is of no detrement to Conroy nor should it be taken as such.

The whole point of these adaptations is to bring them to life, part of the experience for me is hearing different voices and I can’t fathom not wanting to watch this just becuase Conroy isn’t the voice, but oh well.

I think that could, potentially, be more interesting than an animated “Year One” for sure.

I’m going to partly contradict myself here, however, and say that while Kevin Conroy is always welcome, an animated TDKR might be even better with Michael Ironside as Bruce/Batman. His brief turn in that one episode of B: TAS was awesome. That’s just about the only case where I’d accept anyone else voicing Batman in an animated film (although Bruce Greenwood has done an admirable job too).

I’d hope that it’s good, since the source material is, but these DCAU adaptations have a way of coming up short thanks to a limited unning time (and other assorted factors).

I disagree with the person saying that he/she likes hearing new Batman voices. Any interest I had in seeing this pretty much went out the window now that I know Kevin Conroy’s not in it. I’d rather just read the comics now and again, and imagine Conroy’s voice in my head while reading it. Honestly, why go with anyone else at this point?

Other than that, it looks awesome.