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Perhaps--Christmas often gets me thinking about B.R.--it's when I'm most likely to pick my Penguin fanfic back up, or  pull out the movie novelization, movie book, movie storybook, movie comic, movie mag, or the folder of stuff I wrote and drew when I first 'discovered' the film.

Good points, everyone!  I, too, have wondered why Strick didn't get a credit.  If Hamm got one, that's just wrong.  Personally, I loved Waters' script, but after having read it several times I had to admit that it was just too busy.  Too much going on, too many subplots, too many characters.  I love the depth that he goes into with the characters, particularly the villains, but it was just too much for a movie that had to make money.  As a movie, it would have to have been 4 hours long to cram all of that in.  I still think it would make an excellent novel.  It's been argued that the villains were too sympathetic in BR.  I think that argument would be even more justified, had Waters' original script been used.

I've wondered that same thing myself many times.  I finally decided to assume that it was some spools of thread that had finally rolled off the table and hit the floor from when she dumped out her sewing kit.  If they rolled across the table, they'd have taken a moment to hit the floor.

The Colonel Ward Pumping Station in Buffalo, NY comes to mind.

And most of present-day Detroit.  There is so much grandiose architecture crumbling away there it makes a preservationist sick.  Hudson's is already gone, the only department store that must have been grander than Shreck's.  Brush Park, the old Packard plant, the Michigan Central Depot...

Quick unofficial poll: Who here admires both the set design of Anton Furst/Burton's Batman movies and also admires old, crumbling architecture?  Just musing.  I do.

I recall reading somewhere that adding Catwoman to the last scenes of the movie was a last-minute decision.  Michelle Pfeiffer's contract was already fulfilled; that was a stunt double both casting the shadow and rising up against the Batsignal, which is why the camera doesn't show her face.  There's ten cents' worth of trivia.

Ooh, another thing that would have been cool--having the final showdown on a half-busted rollercoaster rather than in the arctic pavilion!  I'm sure the cinematography on something like that would have overshadowed even the best acting, but man!  What Burton would have done with that, visually...gives me goosebumps.

The dark vibe is great.  It is Noir, which is Expressionism.  I just did a class paper on both.

In the very first Penguin story, the alias he uses is Mr. Boniface. Oswald Cobblepot didn't come about until the mid-forties in a
Sunday comic strip. I think Hamm used it as a nod to the first story. Personally I prefer Cobblepot, but having him use it as an alias at least once would be fine.

Wow, I had not known that!  All that time I'd thought Sam Hamm hadn't done his homework!  I read that script long, long ago and came away thinking "WTF?"  That's very interesting.

I had nightmares about the skull-head motorcycle guys when I was really little.  And I'd only seen the previews!  Never saw the movie until I was fourteen.

That was...um...interesting about Penguin's umbrellas.  Very.  I uh, well, hmmm.  Glad someone else noticed, I'd thought maybe I was just seeing something I wanted to see...or...y'know.  Ahem.  *blush*

In the scene where Penguin has taken Max Shreck into his Lair, he is wearing a tie at first, then he's not wearing a tie, then the tie is back a moment later.

Yeah, I got that Shreck/vampire thing a little bit, too.  Funny!  Hadn't thought about the day/night inconsistency thing before, but you're right.  Hey, we should start a thread about bloopers!  I've noticed several!