History Headscratchers / BatmanReturns

* So, did The Penguin actually think the first-born sons of Gotham would just jump into a pool of raw sewage to their deaths because he was holding a cute umbrella?!

* For someone who's allegedly lived almost all of his life in a sewer, The Penguin seems suspiciously well-educated. He knows what the Reichstag fire was, to cite a prominent example.

** The popular refrain about Batman is that [[HeWhoFightsMonsters "he's almost as crazy as those he fight"]]. People decided he'd finally slipped.

** The popular refrain about Batman is that "he's almost as crazy as those he fight". People decided he'd finally slipped.

* One plot point that makes no sense at all when FridgeLogic is applied to it is that people would actually believe that Batman would push the Ice Princess off a building. It certainly looked bad....but wasn't it completely out of character for Batman? Yes, he kills - but he only kills [[AssholeVictim people who reasonably deserve it]], and no one can claim that that girl deserved to die by any stretch of the imagination. And even if, by some perverse logic, Batman ''did'' think she deserved to die, why would a guy who's a known recluse and has been known to employ smoke bombs to mask his exit from a crowded area commit such a heinous crime ''in a place where he knew everyone would be able to see him''? Considering all of this, it wouldn't be hard to arrive at the conclusion that Batman was probably framed.

*** Think about what Batman says to Dick Grayson regarding killing to get revenge in ''Forever''. He's not just delivering AnAesop, he's speaking from personal experience that killing for revenge doesn't take the pain away, it just makes it worse.

*** Ice floats just fine.
**** Ice may float just fine, but what we see in this scene are ''individual snowflakes'', which would melt into the water.
***** Maybe there was a chemical in the water that pevented it from freezing at the usual temperature? So it was cold enough to maintain snow but couldn't freeze normally. We are told that there's toxic waste being produced an the Peguin ends up with a pool of it.
****** We're also told the toxicity levels are Shreck's fault, and if Oswald's a baby, Shreck can't be old enough to have a job, let alone run a company.

** They were rich, probably well-known people. If Oswald was somehow traced back to them, they would probably be incredibly embarrassed. And when you're a shallow rich asshole character in a movie, embarrassment isn't something you can get over too well.

** One of TimBurton's biographers theorizes that Shreck intended to "corner the market" on electricity (in Gotham, anyway) and sell it to the people at artificially high rates (since the stockpiling would enable him to claim that some of the power was unaccounted for).

*** Think about what Batman says to Dick Grayson regarding killing to get revenge in ''Forever''.

** He killed an entire warehouse full of people in the first movie too. If Schumacher did anything right, it was at least setting Bruce up as very anti-death.

* Batman KILLS someone with a smile on his face

** One of TimBurton's biographers theorizes that Shreck intended to "corner the market" on electricity (in Gotham, anyway) and sell it to the people at artificially high rates (since the stockpiling would enable him to claim that some of the power was unaccounted for).

** ForTheEvulz, really.

* When Bruce searches through info on the Red Triangle Gang, his fears are confirmed when he reads that their circus was closed after the disappearance of several young children. This is never brought up again, however, an appliance of equal parts {{Fridge Brilliance}} and {{Fridge Horror}} would imply that [[spoiler: the penguin was already a serial child murderer.]]

* We learn that Shreck is a CorruptCorporateExecutive because he plans to build a power plant that actually intentionally ''drains'' power from Gotham City instead of generating it. What would Shreck gain from this at all? He can't really do much with the energy he's just "stockpiling somewhere", and when people start realizing there's a power shortage ''they're going to blame the power plant,'' even if they don't catch on to the plan.

* So how did Selina come back from the dead, exactly? Are stray cats magic?

* So, uh, stray cat saliva = ressurection?

**They likely (and sadly correctly) assumed no one would want him because of his gross deformities.

* I realize the answer is "there'd be no movie," but ''why didn't Penguin's parents just put him up for adoption''?

* The "Gotham City: 33 Years Later" caption always left me scratching my head. The Penguin is only thirty-three years old? He's deformed, yeah, but not enough to make it undiscernable that he's obviously at least into his mid-forties.