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I'm glad that my images have been recycled here.  When this thread first popped up on BOF, I didn't realize just how extensively B89 mined the comics for inspiration.  It's a lot more subtle than the Nolan franchise but there's a ton of it there if you look for it.

Good one, Batmangelus.

The film has some obvious strengths and some obvious weaknesses.  I enjoyed it but, as someone else wrote, a sense of fun is sorely lacking.

As this is a no spoilers thread, I'll say this: if you enjoyed Christian Bale's Batman voice in BB, buckle up cuz you'll love it in TDK even more.  If, like me, you thought his voice was a joke... well, you might want to invest in some ear plugs.

He didn't kill anyone "important" to trigger such a change. Only henchmen, and we don't even see them die on-screen.

Killing someone important isn't the only way to accomplish said change.  He saw the self-destructive choices Catwoman was making and how they mirrored his own and decided to make a change... and that was apparent even before credits rolled on BR.  Batman told Shreck that he was going to jail.  Had it been Batman from earlier on in BR, I have no doubt he would've let Selina kill him or else done the job himself.

Batman's presence is felt in every scene, even if he's not actually in it.  Burton wanted to create a sense of mystique about the character by not constantly following him around.  Also, B89 is about how Batman and the Joker, different though they are, could be seen as two sides of the same coin.  I liked that aspect of things.

I think the real answer is that Schumacher went out of his way to distance himself from Burton's work... whether that was his own choice or WB's insistence is, as ever, up for discussion.

As for thematically tying the films together, one could argue that Batman learned his lesson about killing in BR, and BF is the culmination of that.  He's ready to be a mentor because he'd made a lot of mistakes himself.

I don't completely buy a non-killing Batman but you could make this work if you were determined enough to try.

05- "I'm glad you're dead!"
04- Batman taking down the two crooks in the beginning (the whole scene)
03- Axis Chemical fight (seemed taken right out of Detec #27 in places)
02- Flashback to Wayne murders- very operatic
01- Descent Into Mystery (but I'm a sucker for these kinds of scenes)

^ Agreed.  Of all the chicks from ANY Batman film thus far (live action or otherwise), BR's Selina is the only one I could see going for the long haul with Bruce.  The very things that drew them together would be what kept them apart.

There's something very Greek about that...

I dunno about that.  Moronic print journalists still use BIFF, POW, KERR-PLUNK in, like, 99% of their reviews of anything Batman-related.  I guess they think they're being clever or something.  Twenty years ago, they might have been but now they just look like idiots.  And unoriginal idiots at that.

B89 is darker in terms of visuals and atmosphere, BR is darker in terms of character and theme.

1.  BR
2.  B89
3.  BB
4.  BF
5.  B&R

I'd agree with the BB ranking.  It's not a playful romp but it doesn't the same kind of bleakness that oozed from Burton's films (that's not a criticism or a praise of BB, just an opinon).

Nor was I, my friend.