What did Batman (1989) have that was better than in Batman Returns?

What I think went wrong with Batman Returns is that Warner Bros. in order to insure that Tim Burton would come back to direct (he wasn't interested in doing a sequel at first) he was granted creative carte blanche. Burton in return (no pun intended) got Daniel Waters instead of Sam Hamm to write the screenplay. Waters is best known for writing Heathers, which was a very cynical, bitter, deconstructive, black comedy. Also, Burton for whatever reasons, seem to want to bring in elements of the supernatural (hence all of the stuff about Catwoman having "nine lives") and German Expressionistic horror. Christopher Walken's character is named after the actor Max Schreck, who played Count Orlok in the film Nosferatu. And Danny DeVito's interpretation of the Penguin was heavily influenced by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

http://citizens.trouble.city/showthread.php?tid=161250&pid=4623469#pid4623469

There's also some legitimately macabre stuff in that first movie. The Joker's commercial, his slaying of Grissom, the subsequent electric handshake... all have a very, very dark edge, in addition to being chances for Nicholson to cut loose.

I think that was a BIG part of the movie's appeal to me as a kid (and perhaps to lots of other kids) -- Nicholson is both scary and funny. His violence is upsetting, but he's having such a grand time that it doesn't frighten the youngest viewers too much.

In contrast with the Penguin in RETURNS, who is such a miserable character that it's easy to see why kids and parents were totally thrown by those antics. He's not fun. Nicholson's Joker is.

This just about perfectly sums Batman Returns up in a nutshell:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/fbqv87/what_are_the_most_bizzareweirdest_movies_released/fj6colw/

Batman Returns is such a weird fucking movie to be released by a studio. It's really violent and weird and it's about a psychotic murderer in a rubber suit, a nymphomaniac in a latex suit and a weird deformed sex pest, and they're all trying to fuck each other. This was released by a major studio to an eager public.

He's another one of these passive-aggressive weirdos.

He's fun when he's doing something fairly original, but he's the type that will ruin shit just to do it.

Planet of the Apes is a great example.

The 60s version was excellent and so thought provoking. His took all of that and made it stupid.

Tim Burton's approach Batman Returns when compared to Batman '89 kind of reminds me of George Lucas or Dan Aykroyd. What I mean is that they're great idea people and world builders so to speak. But they need filters so that the point and stories that they're trying to tell are focused and make coherent sense. Ghostbusters for example, was a pretty bloated mess (before Ivan Reitman and Howard Ramis came in and paired down his more outlandish ideas to make it more relatable and sensible) had Aykroyd been allowed to have his way. Nothing But Trouble is basically what you would get when Dan Aykroyd is allowed to do whatever the hell he wants without anybody that it would be best to reign him some of his crazier and weirder ideas.