The change of the Batsuit from the organic look of Batman (1989) to the armoured look of Batman Returns? Mere stylistic choice? Not so fast! In the first movie Batman is feared as being a giant bat, a literal supernatural monster. It's only when crooks get a good look at him and realize it's body armour do they realize that he's human. What helps with the illusion? The sculpted muscles on the suit. They hide nothing, the armour aspect completely in favour of getting that extra fear value. But at the end of the movie Batman is publicly declared a hero and the illusion is lost. So what does he do? He scraps the "giant bat" look and dons a more mechanical and armoured looking suit, and it can be assumed with the larger plates that it offers a lot more protection.
Doubled in evidence by the ending of the previous movie: Batman gets the shit kicked out of him by the Joker's goons, escapes them by luck, and is barely able to kill the Joker before falling to his near death. In the finale, he chanced death WAY too many times, it makes sense that his next outfit would be bulkier, tougher, able to take more damage, etc...
The Penguin makes a big deal about the dramatic irony of killing Shreck in his own toxic waste, but the way that he actually dies is to be electrocuted, a subtle callback to the reason that Selina was killed — she discovered that his plant was designed to suck electricity out of Gotham.
In the famous "Bruce and Selina dance" scene, just before Bruce Wayne sees Selina at the party, the music — an orchestrated version of "Super Freak" — is very much reminiscent of "Partyman" and/or "Batdance" from the previous movie. When she appears the music turns suddenly sinister and melancholic — Souxsie and the Banshees' "Face to Face", the unofficial theme song of Returns — emphasizing the difference in tone between the two movies.
I used to question why Batman wantonly kills criminals throughout the movie, but tries to stop Catwoman from doing in Schreck. Then I payed closer attention to Bruce's speech in the next movie. There, he describes the hypothetical future for Dick Grayson as killing Two-Face for revenge, but not being satisfied and killing and killing anyone to make the pain go away. Suddenly, this movie makes more sense. Batman has already played a role in killing his parents' killer (of course, this isn't getting into the theory that Jack Napier was just another victim of Bruce's projection) and can't stop because he continues to see each and every criminal as his parents' murderer. When he realizes that Catwoman is actually the woman he's been romancing, he can no longer see criminals as a faceless other onto which he can project his own issues. The real problem here is that Batman is so sidelined that you can barely see his character arc.
Each movie in the Burton/Schumacherverse features the creation of a vigilante- Batman, Catwoman, Robin, and Batgirl, and Batman's attitude towards preserving his archenemies is deconstructed differently each time. We can see Batman's philosophy towards killing change over the course of 3 movies.
In Batman, he confronts his own demon- the Joker, Jack Napier, who killed his own parents. Understandably, he goes nuts, outright declares "I'm going to kill you"- and he does.
Returns is his first glimpse of the vigilante life being forced on another person, Selina Kyle- and he realizes just how broken that split down the middle makes both of them. After spending most of the movie as a sadistic killer, he finally changes his outlook and pleads for her to let Schreck live- but she doesn't.
In Forever, Bruce witnesses (and is partially the cause of) the Graysons' death, and he attempts to dissuade Dick from joining the vigilante lifestyle, asking him whether killing Two-Face will really take away the pain (because, clearly, it didn't work for Batman). Compared to Bruce and Selina, Dick Grayson is young, impressionable, and bounces back from his trauma- he maintains his anger at Two-Face, but doesn't fly into a psychotic killing rage. In fact, when he has a chance to finish off Two-Face, he chooses to help him back up per Batman's moral code- "I'd rather see you in jail." The movie immediately subverts Robin's heroism by showing Two-Face take him hostage, and Batman ends up killing Two-Face out of necessity anyways.
This troper's interpretation was that he loved Selina Kyle, but hated Catwoman, and saw her as just another criminal that needed arresting or, if she kept annoying him, killing. Then he learned she was a good person underneath, and wanted to help her, unconventionally teaching him that killing people is wrong. Hence why, in 'Batman Forever', he doesn't directly kill Two-Face, and only because it's the only way out of the situation. He learned his lesson
How did Penguin get the plans for the Batmobile? Surely that's the big plot-hole of the movie. But, hasn't it already been established that he has a knack for getting secret documents when they've been flushed into the sewer? Another possibility is that Batman had the plans hidden in public records and the Penguin found them.
The Red Triangle Gang itself is brilliant when you think about it. Who would have more reason to be afraid of clowns than the people of Gotham City?
Batman wantonly kills the Penguin's henchmen. Out of character? Not necessarily. His parents were murdered by a man who took on a clown visage. Batman's psychosis is so deep it caused him to fly into a murderous rage whenever confronted by clowns and circus performers. He seems to have regained control by the time Batman Forever happens, probably due to the passage of time, lack of circus-themed villains and the introduction of a love interest he could actually settle down with.
In the comics, the Penguin carried an umbrella because his mother forced him to, after his father died of pneumonia (because he didn't have an umbrella). In the movie, he still has umbrellas, but why if he never knew his parents? Simple: he lives in the sewers. Dripping water, leaky pipes, storm drains... it's to stop water falling on his head. It's not a style thing, it's practicality.
Why does the Penguin ride around in a giant yellow duck? It's definitely one of the oddest and most memorable parts of the film, but there's two reasons to explain it
The first is that, during the sweeping shot of the dilapidated zoo, you can, for a moment, see a cable-car ride with giant yellow duck 'cars' for people to sit in. Much like the rest of the zoo, it's falling apart, so it's possible that the Penguin simply kept one of the cars for himself and repurposed it over time, using the mechanical skills his clowns clearly have, as displayed when they put the control device in the Batmobile
The second goes back to the very start of the film. When the Penguin was just a baby, watch when he's being kept in a cage. There's a cheap-looking mobile hanging in front of the bars, and if you look close enough, you'll see hanging on it a bright yellow ducky toy... identical in fact to the one the Penguin rides around in later. It's possible that, tying into the first, he found the old bit of cable car equipment and saw it as the only part of his past he actually knew about, the bright yellow duck that was hanging in front of his infant eyes
The one piece of clothing that Penguin consistently wears throughout the film? It's basically an adult-size version of the onesie he was wearing when his parents abandoned him.
The Penguin's life begins being thrown into the river and during his return to the society that cast him out, he plotted to kill the first born. Aside from the fact that he was thrown into the river in an attempt to kill him and that he failed his child murdering, the Penguin is essentially a reverse Moses.
Why aren't Bruce and Selina wearing masks at Max Shreck's party? Because they're already in disguise — as regular people.
It gets better. All four main characters — Bruce, Selina, Oswald and Max — appear at the party, but Max, the "respected monster", is the only one wearing a mask. Heavy symbolism there — Shreck is the only one hiding his true nature, his greed and cruelty, under a mask of superficial philanthropy.
Each of the villains is a dark reflection of some aspect of Batman: Catwoman, the black-clad masked vigilante; the Penguin, the old money orphan; and Max Schreck, the prominent businessman.
While this Darker and Edgier take on The Penguin can be off-putting to purists, on its own merits it's actually a pretty clever characterization that suits the animal he represents even more than his comic book counterpart. The Penguin sees himself as a classy nobleman and tries to look the part with his fancy clothing, but it doesn't make up for his bloated, awkward and gross appearance and violent manners (such as the nose-biting), similar to how real-life penguins are often perceived, on a surface level, as cute and fancy-looking birds that look as if they're wearing tuxedos, when they're goofy, waddling creatures that are actually capable of being pretty dang BRUTAL in the wild (look up Dr. George Murray Levick's studies on Adélie penguins if you dare).
While researching the Red Triangle Gang, Bruce learns that at the same time their freakshow included an "aquatic birdy boy" in their lineup, numerous reports of missing children would show up in whatever town the circus was visiting, implying that the Penguin has been murdering children all his life.
And then there's the novelization (which in some ways is even bleaker than the film itself) that makes an implication that Penguin not only knew who his parents were but was also responsible for their deaths to begin with!
Granted, this Horror would be mitigated due to the Asshole Victim factor. You can't say they didn't have it coming after how they treated him in the opening, after all.
If the events of The Flash (2023) are considered future canon for this movie, then this Earth is eventually doomed to be terraformed into a new Krypton, making the plot of this and Batman (1989) events All for Nothing.
On the other hand, Bruce's explanation about how time travel worked when talking with the two Barrys suggests that his Earth merged with Barry's when Barry ran back to change history, so it's also possible that the original version of this Earth remains intact and safe after Barry prevented his original changes to history.
