Okay, so, why is a guy apparently capable of building a life-size mechanical figure in the space of one day (albeit under pressure) working as a toymaker? Surely he could be doing something a lot more profitable with that degree of technical skill, especially in Victorian times.
Cost. Fidget had to steal many, many things from human toy shops to supply Flaversham with what he needed, and possibly the things he needs to create these machines are very expensive. It wouldn't matter to Ratigan but to a single father needing to continually provide for his daughter while still being there for her, hunting down parts, and/or constantly working on life-sized robots may not be the best use of time and money.
It also could be that making toys is what he wants to do in life. Sure, building robots might be profitable, but does it compare with the look on little kids' faces when they get that new toy?
That or the fact that there is a very small market for life-size dolls. Besides taking over England, what other use would one have with it? Toys on the other hand are something people buy a lot.
Aaaand now I'm trying to erase from my brain an image of Ratigan having Flaversham build a sexbot copy of Basil. Thanks.
Why necessarily Basil? Padraic could force Hiram to build him a fembot, like Miss Kitty or Olivia.
We have a trope for this: Reed Richards Is Useless. That, and honestly, while he can make a clockwork army that can make the mouse-England unstoppable, he'd probably much rather use his creations to bring joy to children, rather than conquer the world. If you have children... you'd know. (Or if you just watched Steamboy.)
Who said he did it in a day? We don't know how much time has passed after the prologue. The abduction happens at night, around closing time, and although Dawson finds Olivia at nighttime as well in the first scene after the opening credits, we don't know that it's the same night. The way I see it, Flaversham was held captive for several days while Olivia wandered around trying to find Baker Street.
In the end, Olivia and her father were leaving by train. It's entirely possible their house was in, say, Scotland. And it doesn't even need to be that far away, it would take a tiny mouse days to walk to Baker Street from the opposite side of London.
We DO know how long Flaversham was captive though: near the beginning of the movie, Ratigan tells Flaversham his robot must be ready "by tomorrow night." After he captures Olivia he says "it must be ready tonight." The success of Ratigan's plan to usurp the Queen hinges on it happening during the Jubilee (Dawson's opening narration literally starts with "It was the eve of our good Queen's Diamond Jubilee"). So the movie takes place over the course of two nights.
While there certainly would be SOME use in Flaversham's life-size animatronics (did they have theme parks yet in the 1890s?) as weapons they'd be pretty terrible. Keep in mind the fake Queen, had to be manually controlled from a room away, started falling apart in about a minute once she was actually made to do more than just stand there talking, and despite biting and "rocket punching" Ratigan barely did more than annoy him and he easily stopped it (I know Ratigan is much stronger and tougher than the average mouse soldier but still). They'd make an awful army and at best could maybe guard a single room for a single battle. You'd never be able to conquer a street of London with them, let alone all of England. It would take at least 30-50 years before the material and technology to actually make them battle effective would be available and Flaversham would either be ancient or dead by then.
Hurrying up
At the end of the movie, Mr. Flaversham and Olivia say they must hurry up because they gotta catch that urgent train home and there is a big goodbye scene and stuff. Except that… Flaversham lives in London, right? And Olivia and Dawson were able to walk from the Flaversham's to Basil's? Right? So…?
They might be living in another part of London, and the fastest way to get there was by train.
They might also have decided to leave. After all, that's happened to them it's kind of hard to blame them for wanting to get away.
Did anybody ever say the opening scene took place in London?
A) Olivia and Dawson didn't walk to Basil's from her house but from an old boot she'd taken shelter in after leaving her house alone an unspecified amount of time earlier. B) Yes, the Flavershams live in London, and humans might not need a train to travel between different parts of the city, but these are mice traveling in a human-sized city, so...
The "Oh Ratigan" chorus
"Oh Ratigan, oh Ratigan/ You're the tops and that's that..." The previous chorus had ended the stanza with "...the world's greatest criminal mind!", which since it is the title of the song, implies that the next chorus will be a variation on it. What were they planning on singing, that rhymes with "that" and fits "the world's greatest..."? Am I the only one who suspects it's a deliberate setup for a Last-Second Word Swap?
Maybe it was something about his hat. He really was pretty heavy-handed about dressing fancy.
Or something about Felicia, his cat. Very unusual for a rat...er, mouse...to have a pet cat at his beck and call, so he's probably quite triumphant about that and likely brags about it.
The line may have been intended to be: "Oh Ratigan, oh Ratigan… The only one who befriended a cat"
Changing his name?
Why didn't Ratigan change his name? Does he WANT to be incorrectly classified?!
Perhaps he's proud of the long history(?) of his family the Ratigans and wants to keep their name?
Or maybe his mother was a mouse, as the professor insists on being called one.
Rats are predators of mice and cannot interbreed. Perhaps Ratigan wanted the best of both worlds; bigger, stronger, smarter than any mouse, and cleaner and more civilized than any rat. In the end, though, it's clear which one he is... Or maybe he just likes how the name sounds.
Why does Toby detest Dawson so much? He either growls at him or ignores him completely, and it's never explained why. Is he jealous that Basil has a new friend or something?
I'd assume it's to give him some sort of Butt Monkey role. Olivia's too nice, and Basil is already acquainted with him, so that leaves Dawson.
It's a Stealth Pun. Remember earlier, when it was pointed out that Dawson sewed the tear on his jacket with catgut?
... Oooooh, I get it!!
The subject of "professor"
Was Ratigan ever actually a professor? Did he just take on the title when he became a criminal mastermind to mimic Moriarty (in much the same way that Basil's deerstalker, chemistry experiments, and violin playing are supposed to be an imitation of Holmes)? Is this a shout-out to all of the films of the 1930s-1940s, where Moriarty was still called "Professor" despite not being a mathematician and being universally recognized as a criminal mastermind (and therefore not needing his academic career to serve as a cover from the police)?
Like Moriarty, Ratigan may have originally just been a professor. Unlike Moriarty, Ratigan got caught but apparently not arrested. Just a fan theory, but it could explain the whole 'professor' thing.
This fanfic goes into elegant detail about Ratigan's history and how Basil met him.
He may just be a professor of mathematics; the scene where he sets an elaborate trap to kill Basil and Dawson by mousetrap/crushing/shooting shows an advanced understanding of physics and geometry!
Basil's disguises
Basil is clearly a master of disguise when he wants to be, as seen with the Chinese mouse costume he donned when he was first introduced - the eyes were a bit dead-looking and weird, but otherwise it looked perfectly realistic, enough to fool Dawson and Olivia into thinking that's what he looked like until he removed the head and deflated the body. With that in mind....why on earth, when going into a seedy pub where he knows his arch-nemesis's lackey is there, who KNOWS PERFECTLY WELL WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE, does he think a stick-on mustache that doesn't even cover anything, and a change of clothes, is a sufficient disguise? He could have gone all-out and disguised himself as a one-legged brawny pirate mouse or...well, ANYTHING other than just slapping on a mustache and smoky jacket! Dawson's disguise I can understand because Fidget and Ratigan don't really know him and probably wouldn't have recognized him from the brief glimpse Fidget had of him before the pub, but Basil...he and Ratigan know each other, and Fidget obviously knows him well enough to recognize him and evidently know where he lives at least. How could someone so smart not foresee being so easily recognized with such a thin disguise? Besides that, Basil is mentioned as being a 'Famous Detective' in the paper Dawson reads when he meets Olivia, so his picture has probably been in the papers enough times that most of the criminals in the pub would have at least some idea of what he looks like and could possibly recognize him.
England was in danger of having its queen eaten by a cat, and then having a robot duplicate of her make Ratigan "her" heir/consort/whatever. Basil probably didn't feel like he had a lot of time to put on a passable disguise. Besides, no one else but Ratigan and his goons knew it was really him.
Basil didn't know anything about that back there, and he probably had other equipment at hand, like for example literally just a fake beard.
As the previous troper mentioned, there isn't time to cook up a fancy disguise - he's trying to rescue Olivia and put a stop to Ratigan's schemes. When he had the Chinese mouse costume, he was looking for clues that he could use to arrest Ratigan; this time, he's headed straight to the source for more direct action. The bar is badly lit, dingy, and full of drunks (of which Fidget is one), and Basil is counting on that and only needs to blend in just long enough to find a way to get Fidget to lead him to Ratigan's lair.
Uh-Oh love interests
Ok so, like, I get the age difference and everything but am I the only one who is like...really, really weirded out by the fact that Basil and Olivia are effectively set up like love interests? Like, when I saw this as a kid, not understanding what the implications of such a thing would be, I just assumed they'd kiss or something at the end and was surprised when they didn't cause they come dangerously close to the whole Meet Cute nine yards. I mean, wow. Does anyone else think she was meant as an older character at some point originally and aged down by Executive Meddling to create a Kid-Appeal Character or is it just me?
If you give David Koenig's book Mouse Under Glass a read, Koenig confirms that there was originally supposed to be a female character serving as a love interest for Basil. In fact, you have to wonder if the lady mouse that appears at the end of the movie, isn't some sort of Development Gag. As for the implication that Basil and Olivia are set up to be love interests in the final film? Err... I don't see it.
While a Precocious Crush isn't completely impossible, they really seem to have more of an Intergenerational Friendship. That is to say, Basil seems more like an honorary uncle of sorts, and Olivia even calls him "Uncle Basil" at one point.
As an adult, I eventually came across the information that, yes, they originally had an adult love interest character come to Basil for help instead of a little girl, but I can honestly say that, as a kid, I never saw anything remotely "romantic" or something between Basil and Olivia. (Nothing would have looked more out-of-place for a Sherlock Holmes-style hero anyway — the fair sex is not his department.)
As a middle-aged widower it actually would seem more appropriate for Flaversham's daughter to be older than the little girl Olivia is. It's not impossible that Flaversham married and had a kid later in life than average and had the unfortunate circumstance of his wife dying young, but a teenage or young adult daughter would be more appropriate for his apparent age. Olivia was likely aged down both to make her a kid-insert character and also to better suit her role in the story as a constant hostage and damsel in distress as Fidget would probably have a much harder time wrangling her if she was a young adult mouse that was bigger than he was. The older girl at the end of the story is a head taller than Dawson and slightly taller than Basil even, so she'd look out of place as the "helpless" one.
The Lovely "Miss Kitty" or "Miss Whatshername"?
Is the singer's name actually Miss Kitty? As detailed in I Am Not Shazam, it seems less like "Miss Kitty Mouse" is her name and more like it's simply a description of her, i.e., she's the mouse who appears to be patterned after Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, therefore she's "the Miss Kitty Mouse." This troper doesn't think she has a canonical name.
A bit of a Plot Hole: Fidget somehow finds Olivia at Basil's apartment, yet it's evident that Ratigan did not instruct him to go there. The arch-villain was surprised when Fidget told him he ran into Basil at the toy shop and obviously didn't realize that Basil was already working on this particular case. So why was Fidget spying on Olivia at Basil's apartment if Ratigan didn't tell him to do so?
Well part of his "Get the Following" list was to kidnap Olivia. Maybe Fidget thought to grab her first. Though after spotting her, he suddenly realized just where she was and booked it. Better to disappear and get the rest of the equipment before trying again. Unfortunately, he left a trail.
At least one book adaptation tried to "fix" this plot hole by stating that Fidget was there merely to spy on Basil, and didn't count on Olivia being there. Still, you'd think Fidget would know that being in the vicinity of his boss' arch nemesis, where he could easily be spotted and caught, is a stupid idea.
"Being in the vicinity of his boss' arch nemesis, where he could easily be spotted and caught, is a stupid idea" -> Well, you know… Fidget IS stupid…
Remember, Ratigan not only has an army of loyal minions and resources to overthrow the Queen and (almost) get away with it. He also is described by Basil as "The Napoleon of Crime" (a nickname also given by Holmes to Moriarty). That means he probably has a vast criminal network with spies, contacts, hiding places and weapons at his disposal. Basil (and presumably the police) haven't been able to pin any crime on him even though everyone knows who Ratigan is (if the horrified reaction by the crowd upon Ratigan's grand entrance during the Jubilee celebration is anything to go by) and is only able to begin unraveling the mystery by circumstance, a lead given by Olivia and Dawson finding not only Fidget's hat but the dropped note. It's highly likely that Fidget went back to Flaversham's toy shop to look for Olivia, didn't find her there and talked to the contacts/spies watching the shop (remember, Fidget attacked at night when the shop was closed and there were no witnesses who could stop him or identify him. He also went to the front door and then burst through the front window...which meant he knew the family's patterns. Since it's unlikely he was personally watching the Flavershams, given that he works for a suspected criminal, that meant he had help). It's highly possible said spies/contacts saw her (it's not clear how much time has passed between Flaversham's abduction and Fidget performing his little Jump Scare at Basil's window) and pointed Fidget in the right direction.
Human Counterparts
Assuming that every Human has a rodent Doppelgänger, does this mean that eventually, Mouse-England would have Rodent World War I?
Yes. It is also possible that there are doppelgangers from other species, so this will mean, for example, a Bat-vrilo Princip assassinating a Mouseduke Franz-Mousedinand in Bat-snia.
Tossing Fidget
Why toss Fidget off the dirigible? The point of kidnapping Olivia was for her to be a hostage so that Ratigan could make good his escape. Clearly, that didn't work, since Basil makes his jury-rigged balloon. Now Olivia is a liability for Ratigan since she's why Basil is following him. Hey, Ratigan, you know what would distract Basil and prevent him from following you? Toss her off the side and let him follow her instead of you.
Fidget was getting worn out and Basil was rapidly gaining on them. Fidget had just suggested they "lighten the load," inadvertently calling Ratigan fat. Ratigan proceeded to "lighten the load" by throwing Fidget overboard.
Hostages are useful; lackeys incapable of doing their one job are not; and Ratigan has already displayed a penchant for offing minions who anger him even if that's not necessarily the most sensible thing to do.
Ratigan's sadistic temper simply got the better of his judgement, leaving him with no one to steer; all he really needed to do was switch places with Fidget and his chances of escaping would have gone up considerably.
When Fidget suggests lighting the load and snickers at Olivia, did Fidget was really asking to toss Olivia off the blimp, or was just trying to taunt her? They could also light the load by throwing off the chair where Olivia was standing right? Fidget may be sadistic, but we never see him murdering anyone.
Well, Fidget pretty much hates Olivia, so it's likely he wasn't joking. After all, Fidget did try to throw the Queen into Felicia's mouth, so he clearly has murderous intentions.
However, let's not forget that Olivia is just a little mouse whereas the Queen has all the power of the royal court. It seems obvious that Fidget would try to kill a mouse with enough power to incarcerate or execute him, but perhaps he would refrain himself from doing that to a little mouse girl. We don't know...
Some of Ratigan's greed
Ratigan wants to levy taxes on the poor, elderly, disabled, and children. Is Ratigan not aware that only Parliament can approve taxes, not him nor the Queen? Even if Ratigan did get away with killing the queen without anyone suspecting it, his whole plan to take over wouldn't have worked anyways, and any bad changes he proposed would have to go through Parliament first. The movie very much asserts that the Mouse World is a counterpart to the Human World, so it can be safely assumed that a Mouse Parliament does exist and any constitutional laws that were established (such as the Petition of Right) would also be in effect.
Item One on his list of reforms was presumably "The monarch now has absolute power. The Parliament is permanently dissolved." What he was doing was as much a coup as it was a takeover.
It's possible Ratigan already has a majority (if not the entirety) of Parliament in his pocket, or he'd make plans to ensure that he did once he runs into the inevitable opposition.
Where are the humans?
Since humans don't seem to exist in the movie's universe why are most of the buildings built to a human scale?
Humans do exist in the movie's universe. We see and hear the human Holmes and Watson when Basil and co. go to borrow Toby.
Shoving tail
In the final battle, why doesn't Basil try shoving Ratigan's tail into the gears instead of his cape? After all, he can't just tear his tail free.
His cape might have been easier and safer for Basil to grab, considering that Ratigan's tail is a moving part of his body that he could use to smack anyone trying to grab.
Basil might have also hoped that Ratigan gets stuck longer. If he shoved his tail in, the worst he could do was some pain Ratigan can likely ignore. But using the cape and cutting off Ratigan's air leaves a few more valuable seconds since even a villain has to catch his breath again.
Where is Ratigan's base of operations
Where is Ratigan's lair actually located? Is that an alley? A sewer walkway? A catacomb?
Who's to say the guy doesn't have several lairs all over the sewers of London in each of those areas?
It seems to be a wine cellar, judging by the barrels into which Ratigan has built his hideout.
What type of rat is Ratigan, anyways
Ratigan is propably either a Rattus rattus or Rattus norwegicus, but which one?
Most likely a Rattus norwegicus, seeing as that's what species a good majority of rats in the world are.
Going by the shape of his ears (and head), I'd posit that he's "rattus rattus". Norvegicus have less prominent ears in comparison to their head-neck ratio, while rattus have more prominent ears to their head-neck ratio (reff), on top of this, rattus have wider, somewhat triangular shape ears, while norvegicus has narrower more rounded ears.
Ratigan vs Basil, is it legit?
One thing I always wondered is how is Basil ever a threat to Ratigan that he's considered his nemesis. His initial reaction to finding out Basil was onto his latest scheme was immediately assuming he'd ruin it for him. Not only is Ratigan easily able to dominate him in physical combat as shown in the finale but when Basil comes up against Ratigan's whole gang in their hideout he immediately folds and is captured and the only reason he managed to escape is that Ratigan opted for a Death Trap instead of just killing him right there. Even Fidget was able to get the best of him in the toy store. If Basil is neither a match for Ratigan himself nor his gang how did he not die the very first time he crossed him? It's implied they've been battling for years and Basil always has Ratigan on the run but why run if he could just easily finish Basil off and no longer have him be a threat?
Honestly, this was a bit of a headscratcher in the original Sherlock Holmes stories too, since Holmes has a publicly-known address and you'd think that Moriarty would just send in a dozen goons to go murder him. It was partially explained in two stories where somebody does try to murder him and each time he figures out their scheme and deploys countermeasures in advance (plus a third time when he figures it out on the fly). So apparently something similar is going on here. Obviously, Ratigan can beat Basil in a straight fight, but Basil isn't going to give him a straight fight. He's always got some crafty scheme cooked up. He's foiled a bunch of Ratigan's plans before and there's every reason to expect that he'll do it again.
One important thing to remember about the Victorian era was that the code of chivalry and gentlemanly behavior was strong to the point that Honor Before Reason wasn't a suggestion. It was a way of life. The brutal slaughter of millions during World War I ended that system. Being an honorable gentleman was a big deal. It was the gold standard, the thing that men were encouraged to not only emulate but embrace. Remember that the last recorded duel in England happened in 1852 (almost 50 years previously), that's how deeply ingrained that system was. Being sneaky and stabbing your enemy in the back instead of meeting him face to face didn't just say "I'm not a man". It said "I am no better than an animal; driven by emotion and base need as opposed to logic and higher principles like (again) honor". That's why Moriarty didn't send goons to kill Holmes at Baker Street. Ratigan (and his inspiration from the Holmes Canon, Moriarty) prides himself on presenting himself as a respectable and civilized gentleman...to the point that he gets pissed when his true colors are revealed by Basil in Buckingham Palace. And, again, Moriarty (like Ratigan) only turns to backhanded tricks to get rid of his archnemesis once Holmes (and Basil) lay their sins bare for the world to see...he's got nothing to lose at that point.
The reason both Basil and Holmes are able to escape their archnemesis isn't by brute strength (Ratigan is much larger, stronger and faster than Basil) or using a weapon (that would be ungentlemanly). It's because they used their cunning to their advantage. Holmes was able to survive the fight at Reichenbach Falls by employing the martial art Bartitsu (spelled as Baritsu in The Adventure of the Empty House). Basil on the other hand manages to get the bell away from Ratigan and rings it, which distracts him long enough to not brace himself in time for the chiming of the hour. This sense of cunning also serves Basil well in escaping Ratigan's deathtrap at literally the last second and Holmes escapes three attempts on his life by using his smarts before the big showdown at Reichenbach Falls in The Final Problem.
What was the purpose of Basil's experiment with the bullets?
I could tell he was looking to see if the lines on the bullets matched, but what would it have meant if they did match? Would it mean they were both shot out of the same gun, and that gun was supposedly Ratigan's?
It's a case of Shown Their Work on behalf of the filmmakers. Firing pins and barrels of firearms leave distinctive marks on bullets, much like a fingerprint and have been used to pin down suspects/clear the innocent since the 1920's. At the time the film premiered, it was scary easy to tamper with the firing pin and or barrel (with say a screwdriver) after a crime to throw the police off the trail. It wasn't until someone figured out how to make an epoxy mold of the base of the barrel and/or firing pin (where tools can't reach) in the early aughts that they were able to more concretely identify firearms. Basil probably had evidence that the gun in question either belonged to Ratigan or a mook of his. If he could prove the bullet from the crime scene was fired from said gun, then he'd have a crime with concrete evidence to pin on Ratigan. That's why Basil screamed in anguish and had a minor case of Heroic BSoD until Olivia provides him with the clue he needed..
How the Hell did Fidget escape after he terrifies Olivia at Baker Street?
As Basil is pondering why Ratigan kidnapped Flaversham, Fidget suddenly appears in Basil's window, scaring Olivia. Upon realizing that Fidget is outside, Basil and Dawson immediately race outside to apprehend him...only to find nothing but a trail of muddy foot/peg leg prints. Dawson even says "There's no sign of the blackguard anywhere!" The problem with that is...how did Fidget manage to get away from them so fast? It was maybe a few seconds between them spotting Fidget and finding the footprints/Fidget's hat. Not only does he have a crippled wing (he can't fly) but he has a peg leg too. It makes sense that Basil doesn't immediately follow the footprints after Dawson finds Fidget's hat; he can kill two birds with one stone. He has Toby to track him right to Ratigan's lair and can rescue Flaversham/apprehend Ratigan in one fell swoop. But him being able to pull a Houdini makes no sense.
fanfic goes into elegant detail about Ratigan's history and how Basil met him.