Headscratchers / Batman (1989)

• When Jack shoots at Batman who deflects the bullet with his gauntlet which hits the glass gauge nozzle and hits Jack in the face, I always assumed the bullet blinded him or grazed his face. But, stopping and pausing it looks as if it went right through his mouth, could it possibly be that the bullet, and not the vat of chemicals is the reason for requiring plastic surgery? The plastic surgeon explains "you understand the nerves were completely severed". What do you guys make of it?
  • It's all probably linked together, but I think the implication is that the bullet caused at least part of Jack's "smile", the toxic chemicals mainly contributed the white skin and green hair, and the rest was just a result of the doctor's incompetence.
  • The bullet isn't what hits Jack in the face. The bullet hits the glass on the gauge nozzle, and the shattering glass flies out and impales itself in Jack's cheeks (freeze frame as Jack is hanging over the railing to see the glass shards sticking out of his cheeks). When he falls into the vat of acid, the acid getting into the open wounds on his cheeks from the glass shards results in their deformation.
  • The glass wouldn't have had the force or momentum to cause the damage. The bullet entered his left cheek and exited the right cheek, severing the upper nerves to Jack's mouth. Embedded glass and toxic chemicals entering the wound only added to the damage.
• How did Bob know that Bruce and Vicki were dating?
  • Joker had Bob tailing her and Knox. He obviously found out. Also, the dating life of a local celebrity like Bruce Wayne would be newsworthy, if not exactly front-page news.
• Why didn't Bruce just tell Vicki he had to go downtown for one minute instead of lying that he would be gone for several days?
  • He was trying to throw Vicki off and drive her away gently. He's afraid of commitment. He doesn't feel as if he can live a normal life with someone else.
• Why didn't Batman just kick Jack's gun off the ledge after disarming him?
  • He didn't really have much of a chance; with Bob holding Gordon at gunpoint, Batman may have thought that any move toward the gun (and, by implication, toward Napier) would cause Bob to panic and shoot Gordon.
• When did Joker's henchmen get to the top of the tower?
  • I like to imagine they were always there. The Joker paid them to hang out up there just in case Batman ever chased him up to the top of the cathedral. Just like that one random sword-wielding henchman in the alleyway. The Joker paid him to crouch down there just in case they ever chased Batman into that particular alley. Seems like something the Joker would do.
  • Well, maybe not have him wait in that exact position. Remember, there were two cars chasing the Batmobile. One crashed into a vegetable truck, while the other (carrying Bob and three other goons) continued the pursuit. Before the cops showed up, one of the guys from the other car could've gotten out, ran around the block, and got to the opposite end of the alley at the appropriate time. As for the guys in cathedral, Joker should've known that he might have to make a getaway, so he positioned guys in the tallest building in the city just in case.
  • Again, the comic-book adaption clears this up: we see the henchmen heading up the cathedral while Joker is in the process of kidnapping Vicki.
• Vicki sleeps with Bruce Wayne, but when she sees Batman again the next night (and he holds her in his arms), she doesn't realize it's the same guy she just slept with! How is that even possible? Yes, he can change his voice, and the body armour would change the feel of his body, but the way he smells, the unique scent of his body, would still be the same. For an investigative reporter, she is remarkably unobservant!
  • Not really. For a start, I don't think most people would recognize someone just from their scent. Also, it can probably be inferred that Bruce would put on cologne for a date. He probably doesn't when he's Batman; and if he does, this is Batman we're talking about, he'd deliberately choose a different one to prevent someone from making the connection. Finally, Batman is covered head to toe in rubber and synthetic armour, which is going to have its own scent and mix with his to obscure it.
  • Except his mouth is not covered by the cowl! Anyone who got close enough to kiss him as both Batman and Bruce should have noticed some similarities in the shape of the chin.
  • He also presumably has at least one wash between the two events which, unless he has particularly strong B.O., will probably dull and mask his natural body scent.
  • As Bruce on a date, he is no doubt impeccably cleaned and groomed. As Batman... well, crimefighting is sweaty work.
• If the Joker has a Villainous Crush on Vicki, why does he have no problem throwing her off the ledge? Is he just that much of a psycho?
  • This is the Joker we're talking about, so yes. Also, the one time he let his guard down around her, he nearly got punched over that very ledge by Batman. One way or another, he gave up on her.
  • Also, Villainous Crush doesn't mean he's deeply, genuinely in love with her. She's gorgeous and he wants to "claim" her to sate his ego and narcissism, but yeah, push comes to shove he'll happily murder her.
  • And keep in mind, he's already shown how dangerous he was to his last girlfriend in the movie. He burned Alicia's face off on what seems to have been a "creative" whim, and while he claims she killed herself, he might have murdered her.
• Was Batman really trying to splatter the Joker all over the pavement with the missiles and guns on the Batplane? And, if so, how did he miss so spectacularly, especially with what seemed like a pretty solid weapons lock on the guy?
  • Yeah, the Burton Batman was far more lenient on the whole "Never kill anyone" policy. The Bat-Plane just kinda sucks.
  • This makes a lot more sense if you apply Fridge Logic, leading to Fridge Brilliance (or not). It's a scene that effectively (if a bit awkwardly) dramatises the moral differences between Batman and the Joker. Batman (at least in this continuity) does not shy away from killing, it is true - but he refuses to kill anyone unarmed, or at least who has not attacked him first. His harmless targeting of Joker in the street below is his way of showing his enemy that, in effect, he could be just as ruthless as any of the criminals he hunts, but he won't, because he is (provisionally) the good guy. The Joker knows this, which is why he acts as if he is unarmed for the moment.
  • Or, alternatively (if a bit far-fetchedly), the Joker believes that he has become immortal after surviving his plunge into toxic waste ("I've been dead once already.") - and, conversely, the Batplane's targeting mechanisms really could be all that shitty.
  • That makes sense given that the Batplane's likely meant for fighting other aircraft or larger targets than one guy. Seriously, the weapons on that thing are pretty widely spread out.
  • Or the fact that Bruce Wayne probably made the plane in secret meaning he did it with very few people or even alone, and he had very little time and space to test it in secret. So, yes the Bat-Plane is impressive, but Wayne can't be good at everything...
  • In the comic and novelisation, the Joker was dancing around the bullets, as unlikely as that seems.
• Vicki Vale goes to cover the parade, an event she knows is likely to be under supervillain attack. You would think she would therefore dress relatively practically so she can run and move about easily (indeed, this would be sensible for a photo-journalist on the job even discounting imminent supervillain attack and her own predisposition towards hostage-status). So she arrives dressed in a knee length dress, ankle length flowing jacket and four-inch heels. This from a woman whose meant to have covered wars.
  • Much like Lois Lane, who likes to be in the center of the action to get her stories, Vicki does the same.
  • Yeah, but what in-character reason is there for going into a potentially highly dangerous situation dressed like she's going on a night out? This is symptomatic of a more general headscratcher in that Vicki is introduced as this tough, resourceful woman who's been on the frontline of wars, but spends most the movie as a Damsel in Distress / Screaming Woman. It's just seems like the character is described one way but actually acts another.
  • She was an idiot, but so was everyone else in Gotham, cops included. At least Vale was intelligent enough to stay a safe distance from the parade to take her photos. That saved her life.
  • In defence of the cops, they had to be that close to perform crowd control.
  • Practically speaking, she has to be wearing that white gown so that the Joker can "marry" her (or whatever he had planned for her, which was obviously in some way lustful) in the movie's climax. It's either that, kidnap her while she's in street clothes (which isn't the Joker's style), or strip her and dress her in a new outfit (which would be really creepy even for him, and for which he had no time anyway with the cops already on their way).
  • "An event she knows is likely to be under supervillain attack" — to be entirely fair here, it's an event hosted by the supervillain himself. While, yes, he's likely to be planning something, she can't be reasonably blamed for not anticipating that that something would be "gassing the entire city of Gotham", as very few people who aren't bat-themed vigilantes would. She's covered warzones, but that doesn't mean she's sufficiently Crazy-Prepared to attend the parade in full combat gear. She underestimates the depths of the Joker's murderous psychopathy, she'd be far from the first or last.
• Why did so many people attend the Joker's big parade? It was already public knowledge that he was an insane mass murderer.
  • Free money is a surefire way to attract such a greedy and corrupt populace. They may have figured he'd had this arranged legally and thus they were safe.
  • Better question: why is the parade allowed to happen? Why isn't every cop available in Gotham there to stop at most a dozen of armed criminals?
    • This is Gotham. The city with a cash-strapped, corrupt, jaded, apathetic and mostly powerless or inept police and government. The city which is practically the poster child for Police Are Useless. Anytime the question "why doesn't the police just [X]" comes up relating to a Batman story, nine out of ten times that's your answer.
• Where do the Batmobile's shields come from? There's no room anywhere on the car for it to come out of.
  • Shapeshifter Baggage?
  • Batman invented nanotech before Tony Stark. After all, Batman is the DCU equivalent to Tony Stark.
• At one point, the Joker says he tells all his victims "you ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?" Except we see him kill quite a few people without saying it, so what's the deal?
  • Either he's just lying, or he's crazy enough to think that that's what he always tells them.
  • He could... just be speaking generally. People often use "always" in a slightly loose sense to mean "repeatedly" or "often enough that it's kind of a regular enough thing I do even if it's not literally every single time". I "always" check that every single door of my car is locked before I leave, but I'm sure that if you had access to video evidence of every single time I've ever locked my car you'd find at least a couple of instances where I didn't; that doesn't make me a liar or a lunatic, it just means I'm being slightly imprecise in my use of language and forgetting a few exceptions to an otherwise general habit. The Joker's doing the same.
• After Batman ties the stone gargoyle to the Joker's leg and it breaks loose, why doesn't the helicopter pilot manoeuvre a few yards to put him above the roof? Even if there's not enough space to land, the pilot could at least drop low enough to set the gargoyle on the roof and let the Joker safely jump down and undo the cable.
  • The Joker is underneath the helicopter, and the gargoyle is underneath the Joker. The pilot of the helicopter can't see the gargoyle and presumably doesn't know there's a problem (or, at least, the specific nature of the Joker's problem).
  • Also, even if the pilot is aware of what's going on, the Joker and the gargoyle combined are adding several hundred pounds of unexpected weight that the pilot now has to accommodate. He doesn't just have to move a few yards to the side, he also has to maintain sufficient power to keep the helicopter in control and in the air, or at least keep in the air high enough to make sure the Joker is over the roof. This takes time and power. For all we know, the pilot was indeed trying to do this, but simply didn't manage to do it in time before the Joker lost his grip.
• The Batmobile is equipped with a launcher that can hook a cable onto a lamppost for use as a pivot in turning corners at high speed. It looks cool, but the forces involved make it impossible to get around the turn without snapping the cable.
  • You answered the question yourself: "it looks cool". This one is pure Rule of Cool, you have to suspend your knowledge of real-world physics and just go with it.
    • That's the Doylist explanation, but the question is asking about the Watsonian explanation.