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Stop Giving Batman Warble Voice

Stop Giving Batman Warble Voice

So I just finished watching the new trailer for Batman v Superman , and it looks pretty awesome. Granted it’s a plot that we have seen a million times over, (“Oh boo hoo Superman is so much more powerful than us! We are afraid of him!”) but they certainly hooked me with the Neil deGrasse Tyson cameo, Cosmos- ing up the questions we have about Superman’s existence. By the end of the trailer we saw Ben Affleck as his first appearance as Batman, saying only one incredibly badass line: “Do you bleed? You will.” For all intents and purposes it should have been awesome.

Except I was immediately pulled out of my hype when I heard Batman’s voice, which sounded like someone was drowning the puppet from Saw. Yes, once again Batman was given a deep warbly growly voice, and this time it sounded like it was altered by a computer to sound even more inhuman. It’s perhaps the worst Batman voice I have heard in a very long time, and for the life of me I don’t understand why we think that our modern day Batman talks like a robot with throat cancer.

In my mind, that’s not scary. The deep growly voice doesn’t fit Batman at all. It feels like, for some reason, they are trying to make Batman sound like some sort of monster. I will give you that Batman’s whole story is about becoming an icon, a symbol that criminals are afraid of, but Batman has never been a monster. He’s boogeyman. He’s someone or something that was always lurking, always there, so you never feel safe. In a sense, Batman is a ninja, staying silent and striking when opportunity presents itself.

Batman doesn’t need to make his voice warbly and scary to become intimidating. That’s not how the Batman image works. Instead, Batman says little to nothing at all, and lets naturally paranoid criminals spread their own rumors about his true nature. That’s what it means to be a ninja. You are a silent killer (or in Batman’s case, non-killer) that preys on the fear of the unknown.

That’s why I liked Kevin Conroy’s Batman voice so much. It was just a dark, deep, serious tone. His batman didn’t boast, didn’t threaten unless he had to, and generally he would let his fists and his expressionless face do the talking instead of his words.

Stop Giving Batman Warble Voice

But Ben Afleck’s robot Batman voice just does not produce the same effect for me. I imagine Kevin Conroy delivering the same lines “Do you bleed? You will” and having them register as much more badass.

So please, directors, stop making Batman’s voice sound so comically monstrous. Batman doesn’t need the garble voice. His image does more than enough to intimidate crooks.

What do you think? Do you like Batman’s new garble voice, or hate it? Let us know in the comments.

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