Her work on Batman: Arkham Asylum
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Arleen Sorkin
jsoftcheck — 16 years ago(March 11, 2010 06:33 AM)
Does anybody know the story behind those awful taped interviews as Harley Quinn in Batman: Arkham Asylum?
Most of her work in the game is her usual spot-on performance. Some of her best Harley Quinn material, but those taped interviews are just god-awful. To the point of being un-listenable. It actually sounds like she's -trying- to give the most wooden, "fakey" performance. Most of those tapes are line-for-line dialogue from Batman, the animated series. I really wonder if she thought "why am I redoing this? Why can't they just use the original audio from the series" (which they should have, because her performance there was fine)? and just decided to phone it in out of protest.
Her performance is usually so strong, I really wondered for a moment if another actress might have stepped in to fill in some spots, but her voice is unmistakable. It's definitely her, just her worst performance ever. -
jsoftcheck — 15 years ago(April 24, 2010 12:58 AM)
Yes, having played the game and watched the original cartoon series I'm aware of the plot. My question was why the quality of her voice acting for the tapes is so uneven compared to the rest of her performance. The developers could simply have reused material from the original cartoon series (those tapes are literally word-for-word from the script). Instead, we get a phoned in performance. ?
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heywatsup123 — 15 years ago(May 31, 2010 09:23 PM)
It wasnt a phoned in performance, that was edited to make it sound like its been recorded on a tape recorder for the game. and her voice was more sane sounding and more stable sounding when she was a dr as opposed to when she became harley quinn
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jsoftcheck — 15 years ago(June 01, 2010 04:14 AM)
LOL, okay, let's try this one more time.
"Phoned in" is acting slang for "not really trying." It's one thing to sound stable and sane, it's another to sound like a block of emotionless wood.
Go back and listen to those tapes again, then listen to this episode of Batman, the Animated Series and you'll see what I mean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_vtn_gv1QM
Most of the dialogue is taken directly from that episode. Yet whereas the original sounded like a flesh and blood person, the Arkham Asylum version makes her sound monotonous and hollow. With both versions to work with, I can't imagine why the director chose to use her more recent recording. -
Entropy382 — 15 years ago(July 22, 2010 09:57 PM)
I agree with you, jsoftcheck, and I was saying/thinking the same thing when I first heard the Interview tapes in the game. I still don't know what possessed them to have Sorkin re-do that conversation the way she did, as the 'Mad Love' version was/still is way better.
On another note, I hope these Interviews (Or something similar) are in the upcoming sequel, as they were a nice bit of fanservice
What kind of self-respecting, functional adults name themselves after Pajamas?
LOL
Losers. -
XResidentXEvilX — 13 years ago(July 02, 2012 02:12 AM)
Jesus Christ, how do we put this in 'stupid' for you. Here, just watch this and shut your damn mouth and figure it out. She's NOT Joker's Harley Quinn yet!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_vtn_gv1QM&feature=related -
jsoftcheck — 13 years ago(July 02, 2012 06:36 AM)
LOL, is this a reply to my original post? Did you read the follow ups? I actually posted this video quite some time ago for clarification. I don't think anyone is particularly confused about the timeline here. Just the quality of the performance.