The Keaton did not wear the rubberBat to view information that was for some reason always gathered by Alfred. The Keaton always wore either formal wear or the always fashionable turtleneck/blue jean combo. Well at least they kept the Prince songs out as much as possible.
Both Burton films gain some sort of new depth with each viewing. Odd, but even last night watching the first film I saw several elements of foreshadowing and connective plot touches that I hadn't before. But the Vicki Vale character is seriously underwritten.
Returns still destroys the first film in terms of story and design. The only thing it lacks is an enlarged city scape for the setting because one can always see how the sets became much smaller and re-used. (All from the move from England to LA production between films) But Batman+snow=genius.
Also, Bale cannot show any real thinking as Batman. He is the film version of the Bat blunt instrument. With The Keaton especially, you can see Batman mull things over, get angry, rationalize and all of this comes through minute facial twitches and grimaces and no dialogue. And Batman is supposed to be relatively quiet. (In the first film, The Keaton gets angry and frankly gets too into the work he does. In the second the initial blood fever has worn off and Bruce/Batman has become so painfully tired of this endless and thankless crusade. The armor has been weakened.) Kilmer also did this but in a more subdued way since he played heavily into the character's psychological basis.
