Robin’s suit

[Max Eckhardt]

Does anyone remember any talk from around the time the movie came out to explain the change of Robin's suit from Batman Forever?
I realise that Batman's suit was redesigned as well and that there wasn't really a reason for it other than to sell toys, but the design of Robin's suit is so much more drastic than Batman's.

In Batman Forever effort was clearly made to rubberise the classic comic outfit, but the Robin outfit in B&R seems more like a knightwing suit.

[Silver Nemesis]

His change of costume is addressed in Akiva Goldsman's original script.

Back then Warner Bros was toying with the idea of a Nightwing spinoff film, which may explain why they held back on using the NW name in Batman & Robin. Even so, Dick's suit in the 1997 film is clearly based on the Nightwing costume of the era. Years later the New 52 Nightwing costume would be updated to reflect the colour scheme of the movie version.

[thecolorsblend]

I always figured the in-universe explanation was that the outfit Robin wore in Batman Forever was fine in its place but since Dick was a permanent member of the team, he wanted his own uniform. Alfred designed the Forever suit to resemble his acrobat outfit. I don't think Dick was upset by that but he wanted his uniform to be more to his own likings.

Thus, he commissioned a redesigned outfit that incorporated more of a bat-motif: the more bat-shaped mask, the darker colors, the whatchamacallits on the gloves, etc. That was probably closer to his original preference.

From there, it would've been easy to transition to capeless black-and-blue variant on the B&R Robin uniform if WB ever decided they wanted him to become Nightwing. It was a good design choice, not least because it gave Robin a symbol apart from his standard "R". Love or hate the movie but the Robin symbol looked great paired with the bat-symbol on the posters.

If an Earth exists somewhere in the multiverse where B&R was a box office hit, I imagine that O'Donnell had a thriving career doing Nightwing films well into the mid-2000's.

But obviously that's not this Earth.

[The Joker]

When thinking of O'Donnell's Robin/Dick Grayson, I can't help but think of the Post-Crisis version of Jason Todd's Robin from DC Comics. Even way back in the day.

That being said, this Robin wanting his own distinct costume/logo/identity really just came across as a natural progression of his character. Given his personality from Batman Forever, O'Donnell's Robin wouldn't necessarily have to have a strained relationship with Bruce in order to get the ball rolling on setting up his own seperate identity like comic book Dick Grayson. It would be something he would naturally desire for himself from the jump. And in his case, sooner rather than later.