14 DAY TRIAL // Given the excitement that came with the first look at Chris Nolan's upcoming “The Dark Knight Rises” (the release of the official trailer and a 6-minute prologue), you'd be excused if you didn't quite notice that what the villain Bane is saying is hardly comprehensible.
Yet it's a major problem that Warner Bros. is facing right now, The Hollywood Reporter informs.
As we also noted at the time of the prologue premiere, one of the things that got movie buffs completely intrigued (and somehow disappointed too) was that Bane (Tom Hardy)'s voice was so muffled and altered that one could hardly understand what he was saying.
The release online of the first official trailer has only made the problem more noticeable, with countless fans taking to dedicated forums to complain about not being able to tell what Batman's main opponent on his final on-screen adventure is saying.
Bane wears a mask that covers his mouth and nose because his super-power comes from a drug that he inhales at all times. His voice is muffled by the mask but, at the same time, also altered in the studio to sound more menacing.
“A fantastic action sequence hurt by the fact that you cannot understand the villain at all,” one user writes on Twitter.
“The Dark Knight Rises prologue was really great, especially when Bane spoke the soon-to-be-classic line: 'Mmrbl ffrmrff hmrbblfmm'," another says on the social networking website.
Warner Bros. honchos and Nolan himself, THR writes, are well aware of the problem. While the studio would probably want to make it go away by putting in extra hours on the audio, to make it more easily understandable, Nolan stands his ground.
“Sources close to the movie say Warner Bros. is very aware of the sound issue. One source working on the film says he is 'scared to death' about 'the Bane problem',” says the movie oriented e-zine.
Nolan insists on altering Bane's voice only “slightly” because, he says, he doesn't want to dumb the character down for audiences: he expects them to put in the extra effort to understand what he's saying, just like he would in real life.
“Chris wants the audience to catch up and participate rather than push everything at them. He doesn't dumb things down. You've got to pedal faster to keep up,” says a well-placed insider.
However, fan pressure could translate into Warner putting pressure on Nolan to make some more drastic changes to make the character less of a(n audible) riddle.
Below is the first official trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises.” In case you're having problems understanding Bane's only line in it, it goes, “When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.”
