This really upsets me

[johnnygobbs]

We never see the children. They can't really be considered as having an ending if they didn't ever appear in the film as characters, from my point of view.

There was another Mayor by the time of the next movie, so I don't think that this one got a happy ending.

So, nobody got a happy ending except maybe Alfred who didn't have to watch Oswald on television anymore.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up for me. 

[Edd Grayson]

My pleasure.

'Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view' - Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi (Alec Guinness)

[johnnygobbs]

Sorry to bang on about this (although it is my right) but it still angers me immensely that Batman was not punished in any way for losing his Batarang.  If a cop had lost their gun and it was subsequently used by a criminal in the commission of a crime they'd be rightly disciplined and even suspended from duty.  So what makes Batman, an unofficial cop, on call to Gotham Police Department, any different?  He was carrying around a dangerous weapon and carelessly let it be taken by a frigging poodle!?! 

[Wayne49]

Sorry to bang on about this (although it is my right) but it still angers me immensely that Batman was not punished in any way for losing his Batarang.  If a cop had lost their gun and it was subsequently used by a criminal in the commission of a crime they'd be rightly disciplined and even suspended from duty.  So what makes Batman, an unofficial cop, on call to Gotham Police Department, any different?  He was carrying around a dangerous weapon and carelessly let it be taken by a frigging poodle!?! 

I think if you're going to reach into the rationality bag and pull out this perspective, then you would have to abandon pretty much every superhero film ever made. As a concept, all of these masked personas are carrying out justice according to their own morality not something mandated by a governing body or election. So I wouldn't invest as much in comparing reality to fantasy as I would readjusting your disbelief scope. You will never come across a superhero film where the liberties of others are not being compromised as a result of what one of these people are doing. That is a baked in requirement that you either accept with the territory or abandon entirely with the concept.

People have even tried to imitate the comics by wearing masks and the vast majority of them are laughed at , ridiculed,  or otherwise hurt and/or killed for trying to play out a scenario that really only exists in fantasy. Batman is (and will always be) make-believe. He's a guy dressed up as a bat fighting crime with enormous style points. There is nothing realistic about that. So I would take the bat-a-rang as a plot device to color the villains bad and place an obstacle in front of our hero in trying to stop them.

[The Laughing Fish]

I don't think you can really compare the two because Batman films in their infancy did not enjoy the special effects and story pacing that movies by this time have acquired. Different times and a different audience. In 1992 it would have been inconceivable for him to leap off the roof and make a believable catch and save with the effects as they were at that point in time. Burton very much had Batman grounded with a kind of pulley system that allowed him to get away when he needed to, but was not quite as effective in saving others at that point unless he was falling with them as he did with Vale in the first film.

Plus you have to remember hero films were still not the rabid success they are in today's industry. It would have been difficult to justify the expense in staging a rescue scene like that since the story responsibilities carried greater weight for him to take the blame for her fall. Plus these were no other films creating rescue spectacles like they do today. It was just different times and I think you have to wear different hats when you watch these movies.

I never really thought about that. I just had a look at the budget comparisons between BR and BF. The former cost $65 million and the latter cost about $100 million. That possibly explains why BF was able to show Batman performing that death-defying stunt to save Robin and Chase Meridian in the end, and why BR didn't have Batman react and try to save the Ice Princess from falling to her death.

Nonetheless, we can still complain about Burton's direction of the scene all we want and debate whether Batman should've done this or that. But at the end of the day, the Ice Princess's role in the film was serve as a plot device, where Batman would be framed for her murder. Whether it's done well or not is entirely up to anyone's point of view.

[johnnygobbs]

I would have liked to have seen the Catwoman and the Penguin's original plan carried out.  Apparently they were just going to scare the Ice Princess but do it in a way that caused Batman to be disgraced.  Instead of such an unnecessarily misanthropic turn-of-events that made Batman look helpless, the film should have presented us with Catwoman and Penguin's non-fatal plan, after all no character should simply be reduced to a plot-device.

[Wayne49]

I think allot of these subplots muddied an already crowded script of players. The whole matter with the batarang and Princess was so sloppy in execution was it really even necessary to be in the story at all? Batman was far from being a defined hero for all of Gotham so it never really made any sense that in one breath Gordon would be seen talking to him in public, only to flip positions and implicate Batman with a crime by showcasing his batarang on a news report. That said as much, if not more, about his lack of  trustworthiness as an elected official. So it doesn't appear there was really any serious thought given to whether these plot devices fit with the world established, because it really didn't.

[Azrael]

Nonetheless, we can still complain about Burton's direction of the scene all we want and debate whether Batman should've done this or that. But at the end of the day, the Ice Princess's role in the film was serve as a plot device, where Batman would be framed for her murder. Whether it's done well or not is entirely up to anyone's point of view.

This

[The Dark Knight]

Nonetheless, we can still complain about Burton's direction of the scene all we want and debate whether Batman should've done this or that. But at the end of the day, the Ice Princess's role in the film was serve as a plot device, where Batman would be framed for her murder. Whether it's done well or not is entirely up to anyone's point of view.

This

And this again. The princess dying makes everything stronger. In the eyes of the public, Batman kills her and then drives away like a crazed maniac, sending police cars flying everywhere.