Yeah, I don’t know why it bothers everyone so much. It’s actually one of the things they got right when making a secret identity superhero movie.
Clark Kent / Superman have the same voice.
Peter Parker / Spiderman same voice.
Michael Keaton-Kilmer-Clooney / Batman same voice.
It’s one of those things that make you ask “Come on?! Nobody realizes this is the same guy?”
Bale’s Batman needed to hide his Bruce Wayne voice and a low garbled tone is about the easiest way to do it. What else would people suggest?
I liked it in Begins but it seemed to be a little more exaggerated in The Dark Knight (I could be making that up; I hadn’t seen Begins for a couple years when I saw TDK.) And it badly ruined my favorite character in Watchmen. It’s become trendy.
Edit: Actually I think I liked the concept of it in Begins but even then it sounded somewhat corny/overdone if my memory is serving me.
Devito killed the Penguin forever. Who would want to follow him in that role?
Cat woman is all that is left. I hope they don’t do Batgirl or Robin. They slowed the movie down so badly ,it was half over before the story started.
I’m pretty sure that’s just about exactly the voice that was intended for Rorschach. How else do you read that shaky lettering?
Out of all the crazy sons-a-bitches and 3-pack-a-day habiters I’ve known, I have never in my life heard a voice even remotely close to that-- what makes you think it was exactly the voice Moore intended? Shaky letters can mean any number of things. In my head, his voice was more cold and removed. Almost, but not quite, monotone.
Edit: and his lettering was supposed to be his handwriting, right? Maybe he just had shitty handwriting, or was left-handed. My handwriting doesn’t sound like my voice.
There’s references in the comics to his voice sounding like that. In DKR, the first group of criminals he comes across are terrified of his vouice and ask each other if he’s always growled like that. In Knightfall, when Azrael takes the Batman suit, Robin reminds him to use the growling voice that Bruce uses. The voice was used in Batman Begins, he just wasn’t yelling as often is my guess. When he said “I’m Batman!” or “Swear to me!” he sounded similar to when he was saying stuff like “I don’t wear hockey pads!”
Not to mention in Batman: The Animated Series. You can tell Kevin Conroy’s Bruce and Batman voices come from the same person, but they’re very clearly different.
George Reeves and Christopher Reeve may have played it that way, but it’s in sharp contrast to radio and cartoon performances where the voice actor dropped an octave in mid sentence:
“This looks like a job for Superman!”
I misremembered a bit – it’s not the lettering that’s shaky, it’s the his speech balloons.
I always took this to indicate a seriously raspy voice. I don’t know if movie Rorschach’s voice was precisely what Moore intended, but it’s more-or-less the way I read it.
That actor was, of course, Bud Collyer, who played Superman on radio, in the Fleischer studios cartoons in the '40s, and in the Filmation TV series, The New Adventures of Superman in the '60s. In addition, Collyer was one of the first widely-known game show hosts.
You and Diogenes make good points but on the whole, I think Bale really over does the gravelly voice bit, it just comes off ridiculous. I thought Michael Keaton did a good job. He spoke with a low voice as Batman and he was serious whereas when he was Bruce Wayne he spoke normally and had a tendency to quip.
We don’t speak of Kilmer and Clooney as they were both panywaists and craptastical choices for the Bat.
Ah, I hadn’t realized Collyer did the '60’s cartoon as well.
I dunno, that “You wanna get nuts, let’s get nuts!” moment is 100% Keaton and 0% Bruce Wayne, and it’s completely stupid to simply threaten a bunch of armed men, instead of attacking or escaping. Bale plays the someone foppish urbane sophisticate who can also knock a punk down far better.
One character (Silk Spectre) describes Rorschach as having a “horrible monotone voice.” And his speech bubbles are wavy only when he is dressed as Rorschach, they look normal when he is out of custome. I thought Haley sounded like Rorschach is supposed to sound.
Bale’s voice was more evil and growly in Dark Knight and I thought this was a choice to show that Batman is losing more of himself in his struggle. Good theme but I thought the voice was just too much and got distracting. Otherwise I thought the movie was excellent, and it’s a shame we won’t get more of Batman and Ledger’s Joker - since his last line was something like “I think we’re going to be doing this a long time,” it’s clear they were planning to use him more, and while Batman has some other good villains, none of them have that same iconic resonance as the Joker and they’re just not as interesting. I’ll see whatever they do, but it’s too bad.
I remember this scene and my own take on it was that he was deliberately trying to goad the Joker into taking a shot at him. Just prior to this Bruce and Vicki Vale were in another room, (the kitchen maybe? I can’t recall precisely) when the doorbell rang and she went to answer it. After he figured out who it was he grabbed a metal plate and shoved it in his jacket. (A very small plate, he was gambling to be sure.) I think he was specifically trying to avoid a fight and get the Joker and his thugs out of her apartment. After the shot was fired they all left pretty quickly, probably assuming one of the other tenants were going to call the police. Also, we never see Keaton getting physical with anyone outside of the costume, I don’t think.
Also, about Bale’s gravelly voice, it definitely seemed like it got turned up for Dark Knight, compared to what it was for Begins. One thing I noticed is that it seemed to work okay for short statements, or if he was yelling in anger, but not for longer speeches. For example, when he was yelling during the interrogation scene at the police station it sounded fine to me. But at the end when he was arguing with the Joker about the nature of Gotham’s citizens he just sounded more ridiculous the longer he went on.
It’s not just a voice Bale is doing, by the way, it’s distorted electronically.
Out of the three from that series, Val Kilmer was the only one I could actually see as Batman.
And as Bruce Wayne, not because you have to, but because you choose to.
I will maintain that Clooney was an excellent Bruce Wayne. Batman, not so much.
Most Bat-villians are not very movie-genic, I agree.
I have to say, if you didn’t like Rorschach’s voice then there was no way they were ever going to match what was in your head. That’s the one character nearly everyone considers nailed regardless of opinions on the other characters.